


Mark My Progress

by gaytectives



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Infidelity Mention, M/M, Mary Dies, Sherlock doesn't kill Magnussen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:33:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3552758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytectives/pseuds/gaytectives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the silence that does it, just as it always has.<br/>Mary is dead.<br/>It’s still overwhelmingly…overwhelming.  There’s not too much more to it than that. Or, if there is, John has no idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Endless, endless thank yous to Elizabeth [jwlives](www.jwlives.tumblr.com) for forming this idea with me and helping me edit, Julia [joolabee](www.joolabee.tumblr.com) for her incredible constructive criticisms, and Beth [withoutawish](www.withoutawish.tumblr.com) for sitting down in my documents with me and hacking away at everything and promising that I am, in fact, not a loser when it comes to writing. It took me a year of writing, half a year of editing, and a lot of mental health struggle and insecurity to finish this fic, and I am so proud of what it is. I hope you love it the same way I do.
> 
> This fic is complete, so I'll be posting a new chapter every Saturday for sure!

**I.**

Hollow, forceful banging rouses John from an alcohol induced haze. Even through his clouded disposition, for a split second he thinks he'll need to go for his gun, but when he hears a familiar voice shouting from the hall, he sighs and turns over to face the back of the couch.

"John!"

The banging gets louder and John puts a cushion over his head. _Go away. Go away, go away, go away._

"John, let me in this _instant_ , or I'll pick the lock. I know you hate it.”

John huffs a mirthless laugh and starts dozing off again, warm and buzzing. There isn’t a single part of him that wants to deal with this right now. Two months gone and he has no tolerance for Sherlock Holmes.

Unfortunately, Sherlock holds true to his word and John hears metallic clicking a minute later. He tosses the cushion off his head and stumbles to the door to try and beat Sherlock to opening it. He's a split second too late, though he leans heavily against the door anyway. Sherlock forces it open, making him trip backwards. He stares at Sherlock apathetically.

"You look terrible," Sherlock states.

"And you’re a regular Casanova,” John deadpans. “Wonderful. This is just - yes, exactly what I need after two fucking months of radio silence: you, dropping by, completely unannounced - the famous Mr. Holmes, right on my doorstep. Should I ask for an autograph?”

“Good, you’re in a mood,” Sherlock says.

“Oh well you would know these days, wouldn’t you?” John spits, the acidity of the words practically marring his tongue.   _Because I haven’t heard a goddamn thing from you since you decided you were better off without your broken shell of a friend. How could you possibly know?_

A thrill of satisfaction fills John’s chest when he catches sight of regret in Sherlock’s gaze. “So why are you here, then?” he asks bitterly.

Sherlock straightens up and angles his cheek. "Punch me.”

John sighs. "Not this time, Sherlock.” He grabs his beer off the coffee table and a frustrated huff sounds behind him as he drinks down the rest of the alcohol in the can. When he goes to put it down, a quick hand knocks it out of his and onto the floor. He blinks at it, blank-faced, and then turns to give Sherlock the same look.

"Punch me, John," Sherlock repeats. He shoves at John's shoulder. "Punch me, come on."

"Oh, you think that will solve it then? This is your winning solution?  You really think it’ll make any difference at this point? Sherlock, I'm not in the mood." Kicking aside the can on the floor, John reaches for his bedroom door and Sherlock pushes him from behind so he hits his head against it. His eyes shut, he takes a slow breath, and he turns to Sherlock.

"Get out,” he whispers fiercely. “I've told you before and I’ll say it again now; leave me alone. I don't care when you go, just lock the door again behind you. I'm going to bed. I'm not playing this game with you."

"What game?" Sherlock sneers. "I'm telling you to punch me." He shoves John again, bumping his shoulder against the wall. A savage anger builds in John’s throat and he does his best to restrain himself against Sherlock’s pathetic attacks. "You're always looking for an opportunity to hit me." He does it again, and another ounce of self control is lost. "Go on, then." Again, harder, and John’s hands curl into fists. "Take your best - "

And perhaps it’s because John is six beers in, or because he’s been six beers in for almost two months; because he’s been dousing the grey matter of his brain in alcohol and guilt - perhaps because Sherlock is standing directly in front of him, antagonising him, pushing him, urging him, and looking unaffected and rational about it all - about this, and about everything that has happened in his fucking life over the last two and a half months, that finally, _finally_ , John loses it.

He grabs Sherlock by the lapels of his coat and pushes him backward forcefully - when he trips and falls to the floor John follows suit, goes for Sherlock's throat, but moves too clumsily and ends up being flipped onto his back with Sherlock straddling him and pinning his arms down.

"You said to punch you," John spits, writhing, his wrists fighting Sherlock’s hold. "Let me fucking punch you, you unbearable _bastard_."

"John, you need to - "

He cuts off when John gets an arm loose and hits him hard across the face. Taking the opportunity, John pulls his other arm free and flips them over, barring his forearm across Sherlock's shoulders and pressing down hard against his throat. The strike split Sherlock's lip and it's bleeding just a bit, and god, it's a satisfying sight. "I told you to _leave_ ,” he hisses. “Why do you never _listen_?"

"John," Sherlock wheezes, hands scraping and pushing at John's arms. He manages to dislodge John's forearm enough to get a full breath in, and reaches down to jab John hard in the stomach. It gives him a chance to sit up and use himself to force John back and into the coffee table. The corner catches him in the back and he cries out sharply before grabbing for Sherlock again.

When John headbutts him he takes it, letting the force knock him back. John can see a little drop of blood trickling down from his nose already.

"Will you listen to me now?" Sherlock asks. He gets up and kneels a few feet away, breathing heavily, one hand extended like a barrier between them, the other pressed under his nose, keeping blood from dripping on the carpet.

"Listen to you?" John laughs without humour. " _Talking_ , that's why you broke into my flat and attacked me?"

"I had to provoke you to snap you out of it.,” Sherlock insists.

"Snap me out of it?" John huffs.

"Yes, John, you're turning yourself into a bloody alcoholic! Do you honestly think I'm just going to _let_ you?"

"Yes, I do! You have for two months!" John snaps.

“You locked me out!” Sherlock says, tone desperate. “I tried, John - I tried, and tried again, and you locked me out.”

“That’s what it takes to get Sherlock Holmes to leave you alone?” John throws his arms up in disbelief. “All along, all these years, I just needed to lock the fucking door!”

“It wasn’t just the door!” Sherlock breathes, and John, even drunk, can tell that Sherlock's tone is more unsteady than he would care to admit. “You wouldn’t answer the phone, you wouldn’t talk to me. You shut yourself in here. I have _tried_ ,”  he spits. He sniffs hard and wipes blood off off his lip. “And I’ve been respectful about it because you are _hurt_ , and because that’s all you ever bloody ask of me. You shut off your phone and you locked the door and I _respected_ that.”

They stare, chests heaving, and John can feel his hands starting to shake. "Get out," he rasps.

"No,” Sherlock counters, flint and iron in his tone. "John - "

"No, Sherlock." His voice is hardly more than a whisper and drops to the floor, pulls his knees up to his chest, and leans against the coffee table. "Take no for an answer, _just_ once."

Sherlock pushes up off the floor just long enough to sit back down next to John, back against the coffee table. “What do you think was holding me back all this time?” he asks softly.

 

* * *

 

**(Two Months Ago.)**

Sherlock isn’t talking - that’s what starts the cycle again:

_"I don’t understand,” John breathes. His heart pounds in his ears and his hands are shaking. “I don’t - I don’t understand.”_

_“Doctor Watson, it was an unexpected complication, and we did everything we could.”_

_“Both of them?” John whispers, tears pricking the corners of his eyes._

_“Doctor Watson, your wife died on the table and your daughter was stillborn. We’re terribly sorry for your loss.”_

Yesterday, it was incessant chatter. Sherlock insisted on filling every available moment with one-sided conversations about topics John couldn't even grasp in his state. It was still better than this, though - this canvas of white silence. When there was sound, he had something to cling to, something small to focus on and take his mind off of everything.

The blank canvas makes it far too easy to replay his memories over, and over, and over.

He curls up and puts his hands over his ears tightly. He feels the warmth of Sherlock's hand hover hardly a millimeter above his shoulder, then pull away.

 

* * *

 

**(Now.)**

It’s the silence that does it, just as it always has.

Mary is dead.

It’s still overwhelmingly…overwhelming.  There’s not too much more to it than that. Or, if there is, John has no idea.  

John leaves their - no, not anymore, christ - _his_ sitting room for bed after what he surmises is approximately an hour, abandoning Sherlock in the dark.  Sherlock who had arrived, unannounced, in the middle of the fucking night.

 _Let him stay if he wants_ , he thinks, as he walks to his bedroom - his, singular, solitary bedroom. _He’s not getting anything from me._

He jolts awake hours later from a wave of nausea after a nightmare and hardly makes it to the toilet before retching. His eyes water and he shakes. When it eventually turns to dry heaving, and even later subsides, he hears Sherlock shifting and shuffling outside the bathroom door. He manages to lift himself off his knees and he brushes his teeth. Sherlock’s footsteps move away when the faucet turns off and John slumps back to bed, pulling the covers over his head.

The next thing that wakes him is a painful, incessant light burning through his eyelids and the too-loud sound of curtains rustling nearby. He can hear Sherlock moving about the room, and before he even has a chance to pull a pillow over his head Sherlock has the duvet down to his feet and is trying to drag him out of bed.

“Up,” he orders, tugging on John’s arm.

John glares, lips pursed tightly.

“I said _up_.” He gives one strong heave and has John out of bed and tripping on his hangover-clumsy feet all the way to the loo. Sherlock releases him and nods at the door.

“Go shower.”

“Sherlock, I’m not - ”

And before he has a chance to protest properly, Sherlock pushes open the door to the toilet and shoves John through it. He brushes past him to turn on the shower and then turns right back around and starts pulling up on John’s shirt, trying to wrench it over his head while John shouts out his complaints.

“Sherlock!”

“I said to go shower,” Sherlock bites out, still trying to wrestle John’s shirt off, “and you didn’t listen, so I’m _making_ you.”

"What makes you think you have the fucking right," John demands, pushing his shirt back down, "to shove me around like this?"

"You don't respond to passivity," Sherlock explains. His voice is strained from the effort of trying to undress John without getting another bloody nose. "I'm forcing you. I'll force you back into some ghost of a normal routine if it means you'll stop pitying yourself and your pathetic little life - "

“Alright!” John shouts, "That's enough!" He pulls away and tosses his shirt off. “I’ll take a bloody shower. Get the _fuck_ out.”

A solemn, triumphant expression lights up Sherlock's face. “Gladly,” he says, and slams the door on his way out.

 

_

 

The smell of breakfast wafts through the flat when John steps out of the bedroom, washed and dressed for the first time that week - the first time in months, really. The last time he had a proper breakfast had to be the last day before Sherlock stopped showing up.

He finds Sherlock in his kitchen, bustling around and cooking like he’s done it every day for ages. There’s still some dried blood on his lip and the sight makes another little spire of anger flare up in John’s stomach.

“Good morning,” Sherlock greets. John glowers at him in reply, but it doesn’t phase him. “You smell much better.”

“What are you doing?” John asks, forcing some patience into his tone.

“Breakfast. Kettle’s just boiled.” He nods at a pair of mugs on the counter. John can see two paracetamol sitting next to one of them. “I know you don’t typically eat when you have a hangover, but I can imagine it’s been a considerable amount of time since you’ve had something that doesn’t need to be cooked in the microwave.”

John’s jaw clenches and he huffs. He tries again. “Why are you here?”

“Because I’d rather take care of you before liver failure." Sherlock looks up from the stove to meet John's gaze with his own steely determination. "It's less trouble this way.” He starts spooning eggs onto a plate. “You told me I was your best friend,” he adds softly. “I may as well act like it.”

The plate clinks loudly against the counter where it’s set in front of John. “Eat,” Sherlock says.

“I’m not hungry,” John tells him.

“You’re eating anyway.” One of the mugs and the paracetamol are set down next to the plate and Sherlock looks at him expectantly. “Do we honestly need to go through this?”

Glaring with every ounce of spite he can muster, John yanks a barstool out and sits at the counter. He feels like a kid again, being told he can’t leave the table until all his dinner is finished, eating aggressively despite his queasiness. Sherlock watches him while he eats and it unsettles him to the point of slamming his fork down on the counter.

"You know, you sure weren't 'acting like it' the past two months," he spits. "Though, I suppose that's your style, isn't it? Abandon me for god knows how long and show up out of the blue with no explanation, expecting me to just go back to the way things were - "

"I haven't asked that of you," Sherlock interrupts fiercely.

"'Snap out of it,' you said," John reminds him, jabbing a finger in his direction. "You think you can waltz in here and just fix things but you can't, Sherlock, that's not the way I work."

"Yes, it is," Sherlock insists. "It's how you've always worked. You can't be urged slowly - I tried. For two weeks, I sat around here, I talked to you, and asked you to talk to me, and then let you brood in silence, and when that didn't work, I gave you space." John fumes silently, gripping his fork so hard that there'll be indents in his palm for hours. “The only progress you’ve made since Mary died started last night - that is, aside from your progression from the flat to the liquor store.”

John works his jaw and huffs angrily, stabbing at his eggs.

The forcefulness in Sherlock’s demeanour shrinks down quickly and John can feel anxiety coming off him in waves.

“You haven’t taken the paracetamol,” Sherlock notes, nodding at it.

John takes a deep breath and downs the paracetamol under Sherlock’s watchful eye - he just stands to the side, eyeing John, drinking from his own mug.

“Do you want to talk yet?” Sherlock asks.

“No,” John answers immediately.

“I just figured - ”

“No.”

Sherlock gives him a forlorn look. “You can’t just put this off forever.”

“I can, and I will,” John insists. “My life, the mess that it is, is not your business, Sherlock. It’s my mess, and I need to clean it up myself.”

“That’s a ridiculous analogy,” Sherlock mutters, cleaning up his dishes. “When someone makes a massive mess of things they tend to ask for help picking up. If the floor was covered in broken glass and I was cornered and barefoot I wouldn’t just sit there without asking you to help me.”

“Running with that, I’ve already walked all over the broken glass and cut my feet open,” John says. He dumps his plate in the sink unceremoniously and chips the ceramic in the process, then heads toward the sitting room. “You don’t know how to give stitches, so leave it to the doctor to fix himself up.”

“John,” Sherlock calls. John stops at the doorway and turns back. “I’m sorry about Mary.”

“Yeah, well,” John mutters coldly. “So am I.”

 

* * *

 

**(Three Months Ago.)**

“Of course I’m acting like I don’t want to do this, _I don’t want to do this_.”

“Well, you don’t have a choice,” Mary says. Her arm wraps protectively around her stomach, as though she _does_ want it.

She doesn’t want the kid. She wants the marriage. She wants to keep John around.

It’s been a fight, a back and forth, and it has for months. His best friend was shot, his wife is a psychopath, their daughter isn't his, and he’s still, _still_ hoping, practically _begging_ some god that he hardly believes in anymore, that his life will turn down a path that makes sense.

He'll listen to what Sherlock said - that Mary saved his life despite the fact that she ended it as well. He'll keep acting under the pretence that he's forgiven Mary, despite the fact that every time he sees her he can feel anger boiling under the surface of his skin.

He'll take the high road; settling down, care for someone else’s daughter. Try to fix his marriage.

A shrill voice in the back of his head says he’s delusional for thinking that a marriage to a psychopath can be patched up, but he has to try, for himself - for his own little shriveled remnants of sanity and hope. He has to just push past it.

“I know,” he says meekly. He swallows hard and puts on a halfhearted smile. “We can make this work, yeah?”

Mary’s eyes light up and she grins and laughs, overjoyed. John kisses her as though he loves her like he used to.

 

* * *

 

**(Seven Years Ago.)**

He lets out a string of breathy giggles, covering his mouth to muffle the sound. James grins widely, eyes wrinkled around the corners.

“Oh, my god,” John wheezes, “oh, god, I did _not_ expect that out of you.”

“Haven’t we all had some kind of wild university experience?” Sholto asks.

“You drove a golf cart into a swimming pool!” John exclaims in a whisper. “I figured your crazy university experiences were… I don’t know, getting drunk with a mate at the library, or something.”

“Who gets drunk at the library?”

“Shut up, you,” John snorts, shoving him. Sholto smiles again and shifts closer to John. John’s eyes soften and he leans in and James’s lips are warm and welcoming and his arms envelope John into a world hidden inside their own.

 

 

* * *

 

**II.**

John lies awake in the dead of night, staring blindly at the ceiling. The curtains are shut because Sherlock has insisted  on throwing them open in the morning to wake John up for the two days he’s been here.

The doctor’s pronouncement from months ago plays through his mind on repeat and he wonders why every relationship he’s ever had has fallen to shit.

He hears footsteps gently creaking toward his bedroom and pulls the duvet over his head so he doesn’t get roped into any kind of interaction. The door opens and after a moment shuts again. A soft, aching guilt fills John’s chest when he thinks about Sherlock checking on him the past three nights.

Checking on him; waiting on him; forcing the life back into him.

He curls up and turns over to face Mary’s side of the bed, bitterness and grievance dripping from his every pore.

The front door clicks open and shut again just as he’s dropping off to restless sleep.

 

 

-

 

The next morning, the kitchen is fully stocked. It’s a shock; it stops John in the doorway, wide-eyed. There are eggs on the counter and boxes of cereal on the shelves, and when he delves further in he finds edible milk in the fridge and cheese without mould. He walks back to the sitting room.

“You did the shopping?” he asks.

“Hmm?” Sherlock looks up from John’s well-worn copy of _Watership Down_. “Oh, yes - this morning, before I woke you up. You had no food left.”

“Right,” John mumbles. His gaze clings to the sight of rings growing dark beneath Sherlock’s eyes. He looks exhausted, but he’s wearing fresh clothes, and John wonders where he got them.

Sherlock blinks at him a few times. “Everything alright?”

John snaps out of it and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna do porridge, I think.”

“Oats are in the cupboard,” Sherlock tells him, going back to the book. “The old ones were a funny colour.”

John smiles halfheartedly and turns back to the kitchen. Some of the anger he’s been building up since the night Sherlock abandoned him fades away as he wonders when Sherlock last slept.

 

-

 

The plumbing runs through John’s bedroom, so he wonders how he didn’t hear Sherlock showering in the middle of the night.

It had to have been in the middle of the night - he doesn’t leave John alone any time during the day, but he smells of that overly fragrant, poncey shampoo he’s always used, and John realises he doesn’t have that in his flat.

Then he sees a gym bag stuffed between the far end of the couch and the end table and he realises that Sherlock has to have been staying up most of every night for at least four days, if not more. He’s been going back and forth between 221B and John’s flat; at first just to grab a change of clothes, but now long enough to pack a bag and shower.

The other night he must have gone out shopping at a twenty-four hour grocery. _‘Before I woke you up,’ my arse_ , John thinks. When he heard Sherlock leave it had to have been at least three in the morning.

John watches Sherlock as inconspicuously as he can throughout the day. There’s a kind of controlled, manic energy surrounding him - like he’s ready to jump out of his skin and pass out for a week straight. It reminds John of those few, seemingly endless cases he’d take ages ago.

He’d be up for days and aching to solve the problem and get on with it, because the puzzle’s no fun if you can’t finish the whole picture.

 

* * *

 

**(Two Months Ago.)**

The first day that Sherlock stopped coming over didn’t phase John. He’d been there every day for two weeks. It made sense that he needed a short break. Hell, John needed one, too. The back and forth of a day full of chatter and a day full of silence and a day full of, “do you want to talk?” was wearing on him.

The second day left John feeling restless and weary.

On the third day he climbed into bed with a half-empty bottle of whiskey and decided to give up on Sherlock. He gave a mental ‘cheers’ to reciprocity and drank half the liquor down.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

At the end of the week John realises that Sherlock leaves him alone, fully conscious, for the first time.

He’d been watching John - a habit that John got used to about a week after they met - and then he’d jumped up out of nowhere and said, “I’ll be back,” before leaving John alone in silence.

The idea of being left alone doesn’t make John anxious, but the fashion in which Sherlock left does. He’d disappeared, just like that, without any warning.

He said he’d be back, though. John clings to that little promise and lies down on the couch, hoping to manage a nap, and that when he wakes, Sherlock will be back.

It’s a light sleep, so he rouses when the front door shuts, full of relief when he realises that it means Sherlock kept good and came back. Sherlock doesn’t notice, or maybe he does, and walks over to squeeze and gently shake John’s shoulder. John grunts softly, not maliciously, and turns onto his back so he can stretch his arms above his head.

“I got dinner,” Sherlock says, walking around the coffee table. Blinking drowsily, John glances over to him and watches him pull cartons out of a paper sack. “I figured you might enjoy it, and I’m tired of cooking.” He looks disheartened for a moment and gazes down at the Chinese takeaway he set on the table. “I only remember what you used to order,” he continues. “I don’t know if you’ve changed tastes since then.”

“S’fine,” John mumbles, sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck. John sees Sherlock look at him in momentary surprise at the willingness of his tone, and chooses to ignore the reaction.

They settle with dinner on the couch and Sherlock turns on the telly to an uninteresting documentary that John easily tunes out. He picks at his food and pushes it around in the carton. If he doesn’t eat anything Sherlock will comment on it, so he has a few big bites and manages to finish half the carton of spicy beef and broccoli before letting himself get up and put the rest in the fridge.

He stops in the doorway to the sitting room and looks at Sherlock, curled up in the smallest amount of space possible on the far end of the couch, and his heart pangs.

“Thank you,” he says softly. He avoids Sherlock’s eye as he crosses the room to sit in the armchair. “I know I haven’t exactly… been receptive, lately.” He stares down at his hands, curled up in his lap tightly. “But you’ve been helpful, and I. I’m grateful, Sherlock, I really am. When you left, before, I didn’t know what to do without you here,” he admits. “I don’t think I’ve ever… really known what to do with myself, but when you left, and she was dead, I - ” He cuts off, shaking his head. He sees Sherlock watching him,expression full of guilt, out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ve been building this rut for myself from the start, and I was too bloody stubborn to let you help me out of it. Still am, I guess. I’m going to try, though,” he promises. He looks up at Sherlock and nods definitively. “I am.”

He gets up again before Sherlock can put a word in edgewise and heads toward his bedroom.

“I’m sorry about the bloody nose,” he says, stopping in the doorway. “And the, ah, split lip. And for trying to suffocate you.”

Sherlock smiles sadly at him and the overwhelming sympathy in his gaze drives John to bed simply to avoid feeling pitied.

 

-

 

Waking up before Sherlock can come in to draw the curtains is what John signifies as his first success.

When he realises that it’s only because Sherlock finally crashed and passed out on the couch - the documentary channel still on, his leftovers gone cold on the table, only half lying down against the arm of the sofa with a blanket draped over one shoulder - his first success becomes wracked with guilt and shifts over to mark yet another failure.

Any residual (and completely erroneous) anger he held against Sherlock dissipates and he shuffles over to rearrange Sherlock. John fixes it so that he’s actually lying down and the blanket is covering him completely. He gathers up the leftovers off the table and heads to bin them, pretending for a moment that everything is as it ought to be, and they’re back home, where they both belong.

 

-

 

“Where are you going?”

John stops with his hand around the doorknob and glances over to where Sherlock is poking his head out from the kitchen.

“The clinic,” he says, “to see if there’s a position available. It’s been too long. My bank account is probably completely empty. I need to pay rent, and I need a job for that.”

“Oh.” Sherlock steps fully into view, looking like he wants to approach but is constraining himself to the kitchen.

John nods and clears his throat. “I know you probably haven’t had a case for awhile, so. If you need…” He gestures halfheartedly and nods again. “You don’t have to, ah. Stay. All the time, I mean, if you want to go… take a case, or spend a night back at 221B. I’m not going to down a bottle of vodka any time soon, I’m doing… better. You’ve been here two weeks now - “

“If you’re asking me to stop looking after you, the answer is no,” Sherlock interrupts. “You may continue to give the silent treatment or act out physically as often as you’d like, but I’m not leaving you alone. You needn’t force yourself back into work and stunt your progress just because you want me to leave, because I am not going.”

“No, Sherlock, I’m - I’m not asking you to leave.” Confusion crosses Sherlock’s expression and John shifts guiltily, dropping his gaze to his feet. “I appreciate what you’ve been doing,” he mutters. He rubs the back of his neck, hard. “I can’t sit in this flat anymore. You’re even worse at keeping cooped up than I am, I just… figured you’d need a case by now.”

“Oh,” Sherlock says again. It’s softer.

John doesn’t make eye contact as he pulls the door open. “I’ll get the shopping on my way back.”

“If you bring back any alcohol - “

“I know.” He finally lifts his gaze to Sherlock’s and gives him a short, grim smile, and walks out the door.

 

-

 

Slamming the door is what John figures to be his most effective way of getting a point across, so he does just that when he gets back to his flat. He’s angry; he’s angry, and he’s grievous, and he wants to down every drop of alcohol in the nearest square mile of area, but Sherlock _fucking_ Holmes binned all of his two weeks ago so all he can do is slam the door and throw his bag across the room emphatically.

“John?” Sherlock rises from the couch immediately, startled away from whatever work he has spread out on the coffee table.

“Three days!” John all but shouts. “I’ve been back at the clinic for three _fucking_ days, and right when I thought everything could be fine, some sick power had to go and prove me wrong _again_!” He bangs his fist against the door behind him and inhales slowly through his nose to try and calm down.

“What happened?” Sherlock asks. A mirthless laugh pushes pasts John’s lips and he gives Sherlock a deadly look. He sees Sherlock’s shoulders tense immediately and the detective straightens up and swallows tightly. “All right,” he concedes. “I know what happened.”

“Good,” John spits. “Then we don’t need to talk about it.”

“John - ”

“ _No_ , Sherlock.”

This time, Sherlock’s posture changes and John can see a clear transition from his previously submissive stance, and he takes a step toward John.

“You have avoided speaking to me about anything for two weeks, and I’ve let you do as you please.” John glares up at him as Sherlock walks closer and starts looming over him. “What you did was reject my attempts to help when you quite clearly needed it, and I allowed it because I understood that it needed to be gotten out of your system. It’s out now, and I know because you’ve apologised to me, and because you admitted it to yourself that you were being stubborn, so now you need to _talk_.”

Sherlock stares down at him, unyielding as he concludes his diatribe, and John holds his own until he feels his knees start to give way. His expression starts to crack and Sherlock’s immediately turns to concern as John shakes his head minutely.

“An old patient with a degenerative memory came in today and kept asking for Mary,” he rasps. “The first time I was able to tell her what had happened, but she just kept asking again and again and I - ” He cuts off with a wavery inhale and bitten back tears, keeping his eyes on the floor and away from Sherlock’s surely sympathetic gaze.

“Obviously, degenerative memory would denote a strong tendency to rely on past experiences...”  Sherlock’s voice trails off.  John doesn’t look up.

“I’ll… start the kettle,” Sherlock finishes awkwardly. 

His feet slide out of John’s field of vision but John doesn’t move until he hears the tap running in the kitchen. The couch beckons him from the corner and he stumbles over, legs shaking, and collapses on the cushions. His hand comes up to cover and rub at his eyes, willing tears away forcefully until it starts to burns. He rests his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands and just _exhales_ ; a dry sob that wracks his chest with tremors and springs up new tears that he wipes away quickly and insistently. He doesn’t notice Sherlock coming back into the room until the couch depresses next to him and a tentative hand rests on his shoulder.

John sniffs quietly and uses his sleeve to dry off his eyes, ducking his head to the side so he can pretend that Sherlock didn’t see, so he can pretend that Sherlock doesn’t know he’s crying. It’s ridiculous, but it helps. He takes a few slow, regulatory breaths and lets his head hang.

There isn’t a single explanation for his reaction. He knows, deep in his heart of hearts, that there was nothing that could have fixed their marriage, but being reminded over and over that for awhile he had something good is like a knife in his gut.

“They’re everywhere,” he says softly. “I can’t get away.”

The kettle goes off in the kitchen and the warmth on his shoulder is pulled away with its owner as he leaves the room.

 

* * *

 

**VI.**

“I’ll need to pop over to Baker Street today,” Sherlock says over breakfast. John looks up from his toast with a brow cocked in interest. “I assume you’ll be alright on your own for a few hours?”

“I won’t set anything on fire,” John replies. And then, under his breath, “unlike you.”

“That was once, and you said you were over it.”

“I am over it.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“Nevermind,” John insists. Silence settles back between them and John picks at his breakfast, bitter about Sherlock going to do his errands on the one day John doesn’t have work this week. He’s been making it a point to let John know that he’s getting better, that he believes John can be trusted on his own, as though he’s a small child who pulls out permanent markers to decorate the walls when no one is looking.

“You could come, if you’d like,” Sherlock offers. His tone is nonchalant but John can see his shoulders raised, tense. He’s avoiding eye contact, and the offer had piqued John’s interest for a brief moment before his mind got the better of him. It’s a pity offer. _I have errands to run but if you think you can’t spend an hour alone then I suppose you could come with me_. The thought makes him bristle and lose his appetite.

“No, that’s alright,” he replies curtly, setting his fork down. “I should stay back and take my turn at cleaning up around here.”

Sherlock visibly deflates and John furrows his brow. “Probably for the best,” Sherlock says, a kind of forced cheeriness on his face. “I’ve not been there to regulate an experiment I started up awhile ago. The kitchen is probably biohazardous.”

John’s heart sinks in his chest when he realises he got it wrong - it wasn’t pity. It was a genuine offer, and he snapped for no reason.

Sherlock smiles briefly when he gets up to put his dishes in the sink then walks out and John stays there until he hears the front door open and shut, not letting himself think about how suddenly he’s aching for his life as it was a few years ago.

 

-

 

By the end of the next week, John thinks the majority of Sherlock’s wardrobe has migrated to his sitting room closet. It’s strange, basically living with Sherlock again but without any of the cases or experiments or property damage. It’s even stranger that they’re together somewhere that isn’t Baker Street; together in a space that signified his life without Sherlock, and as time keeps going on, staying where they are seems more and more wrong.

Still, when he thinks about packing up and leaving it feels like there’s a knife in his gut and it’s being twisted repeatedly and relentlessly. The change is daunting and sudden and he can’t begin to think about how he’s going to get over it. There hasn’t been a single constant in his life since he left the military, and he’s late to say that it’s starting to wear on him.

 

-

 

“Mrs. Hudson demands that you visit,” Sherlock says over dinner.

John thinks about the way she acted around him when they lost Sherlock. All the edging around the subject and the pitying looks; the idea scares away his appetite.

“Maybe sometime,” he says, smiling shortly in Sherlock’s direction before getting up to put away his food.

 

-

 

“When’s the last time you had a case?” John asks.

Without looking up from his book Sherlock gestures toward his computer on the coffee table. “I had about eleven this morning.”

“You’re working them through email again?”

John’s incredulous tone finally gets Sherlock to look up and his brows knit together in confusion. “Yes, why?”

“I - I just thought. You’ve always preferred meeting face to face, at least. Lestrade must have offered you some, too. You haven’t… Have you had client since Magnussen?”

Sherlock’s gaze skips and jumps all over John. “Well, I have more important things to do here. It’s fine,” he tacks on in a mutter, going back to his book. John feels like sinking.

 

-

 

When John gets up in the morning he walks out to find Sherlock asleep on the sofa. He’s curled in on himself on the far end, pressed up against the back cushions, small and exhausted. The blanket he must have had around him is on the floor and John’s heart clenches in his chest.

It’s wrong. No - it’s not wrong. It _feels_ wrong; this isn’t how it used to be, it’s not how it ever _should_ be.

He wants out. He wants out of this flat and away from everything that reminds him of the mess his life has been since Sherlock came back from the dead. Everything that could possibly have gone poorly did, and his life is a shattered mess that he’s only just started to pick up and that he knows he won’t be able to put back together in a flat saturated with shit memories.

He walks over and gathers the blanket up off the floor before sitting down on the coffee table. He puts a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and the detective jolts from sleep immediately, looking around almost frantically before he sees it’s John who touched him.

“Everything alright?” Sherlock asks, bringing a hand up to rub the sleep from his eyes.

John swallows, throat tight with guilt.

“Please, get me out of here.”

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hugs and gigantic thank yous to [jwlives](www.jwlives.tumblr.com) for taking time out of her week to help me edit this you are everything

**I.**

John’s bag, stuffed with as many clean clothes as he could shove in it, hits the floor of 221B’s sitting room with a satisfying thud.

He suspects it only feels different because it’s been so long since he lived here. If he had a quick look around, everything would probably be as he remembered it - Sherlock always had a penchant for keeping things exactly as they were. He would insist that he had a very specific organisation system, so John left his things where they were, and Sherlock, well. Sherlock never cleaned.

That particular habit is quite evident by the smell when he walks in the door.

Following the odour to the kitchen, John’s nose scrunches up and he swallows hard. Sherlock takes a deep breath through his mouth and turns to John. “I’ll get rid of it,” he says quickly, holding his hands up in a vague reaching-out gesture, as though he’s afraid John might leave. “I hadn’t meant to leave it unattended this long, I just… I forgot, a bit.”

“It’s fine,” John says with a tight smile. _He forgot because he was taking care of you for two weeks_ , he thinks. _You have someone who cares for you more than you ever knew, don’t fucking blow it_. “I’m just going to bring my things upstairs, yeah?”

Sherlock nods and John grabs his bag again before heading up to his old room. As soon as he shuts the door, he hears Sherlock start banging around downstairs. Heaving a sigh, he sits heavily on the edge of his old bed (which Mrs. Hudson made up, no doubt as soon as Sherlock called to say John was coming to stay for awhile).

His room doesn’t feel like his room anymore. It doesn’t feel inhabited - he knows Mrs. Hudson comes up to dust and hoover and change the sheets every now and again, because for awhile John was visiting and occasionally staying over after a case. Otherwise, it’s been vacant. Despite the lack of dust, the air feels heavy, and though he never filled the room with bits and bobs even when he called Baker Street home, it feels impersonal.

He pulls his gun out from from his gym bag and puts it in the sidetable drawer; its perpetual resting spot. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to stay, yet. A part of him says that this part of his life is over - he’s in his forties, what excuse does he have to still be living with a flatmate?

 _Your wife died_ , he reminds himself, lying back on the pressed duvet. _And was a hired assassin. Give it time._

 

* * *

 

**II.**

What John hates most is the way Sherlock looks at him - no longer like a puzzle to be solved, but a puzzle whose finished product has missing pieces and frayed edges. Like he’s broken.

 

-

 

“Lestrade wants me in for a consult.”

“You going to take this one?”

“I suppose.”

“Working cases through email must be getting boring.”

“Do you want to come?”

John worries the inside of his lip. The _'pity'_ chant echoes inside his head and he finds himself saying, “I can’t. I’ve got work.”

 

-

 

When the door to the sitting room opens a few hours later and Sherlock steps in, a nervous knot ties itself in John’s stomach.

“You’re back early. Boring case?” he asks. _Do you not trust me? Do you think I can’t be left on my own?_

“It was simple,” Sherlock says, shrugging. He wrings his hands absently, avoiding John’s eye. “Just took a few hours. Anyhow, I have an inbox full of far more complicated cases I can work just fine from home.” He grabs his computer off the coffee table and settles on the sofa while John’s heart falls through to the floor.

 

-

 

The familiar sound of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major (whose name he only knows because Sherlock has told him countless times) drifts up the stairwell at two in the morning, and John knows that Sherlock heard him shouting or crying through a nightmare. The guilt that usually overwhelms him simply gathers low in his stomach like a stone, too bushed to be affected as he usually would. He lies in bed and listens until sleep takes him again, albeit with another nightmare.

 

-

 

John realises that he left a work folder back at his flat when he’s going through his bag at the clinic.

He sits down and puts his head in his hands wearily. If he has to go back for this, he knows that eventually he’ll have to go back again. For clothes, for books; for every last possession left in that flat, because he knows inside himself that he doesn’t _want_ to live there again, ever.

He wants to live in Baker Street.

 

-

 

When Sherlock sets a steaming mug of tea in front of him on his sixth evening back in 221B, John makes his final decision.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?” The other man looks up from his computer and glances across the room at John. “Everything okay?”

“Er, yeah,” John says, furrowing his brow and nodding in slight, though his eyes are in his lap. “I’m just… I was wondering if it would be okay - that is, if you would mind…” He trails off and clears his throat. “It’s been… God, about three months since Mary… died, and I don’t think - I can’t go back there again, and…” He pauses, working up the nerve to glance up at Sherlock, head still ducked in slight. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind my moving back in. Permanently, that is.”

The same light comes to Sherlock’s eyes that does when he sees a fascinating new case and John knows the answer before Sherlock can say, “You needn’t have asked at all.”

 

* * *

**(Four Years Ago.)**

“You alright, John?”

He comes suddenly out of his memory, hand uncurling from the tight, painful fist it’d been clenched in. He clears this throat. “Ah, yeah. Sorry.”

Mary smiles understandingly and strides over to him. She touches his shoulder, and though it’s gentle and well-meant, it makes his shoulders tense up. She doesn’t seem to notice.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” she asks, looking around. “Bit small, I mean, but. Just the two of us.”

John smiles halfheartedly and nods. “It’s nice,” he agrees. “A nice change.”

“It’s not too sudden, is it?” Mary asks carefully. “I mean, we’ve only known each other a few months.”

“It’s not,” John promises. A sort of warmth fills his heart at the caring smile on Mary’s face. He lifts his bag a bit and says, “I’m gonna drop this in the bedroom, alright?”

“‘Course, luv. I’m gonna get started on the dishes, alright?” John nods and smiles at Mary’s beaming grin. When she enters the kitchen John goes into the bedroom and locks the door behind him, hoping the click wasn’t too loud. He looks over his shoulder more than once while getting his gun out from under his jumpers.

The bedside tables were one of the reasons he agreed to this flat - he can lock the drawers and keep the key where only he knows it is.

He trusts Mary, of course, but there are some aspects of his life now that are better spent hidden away. He locks his gun away with the key to 221B, ignoring the burning of tears in the corners of his eyes, and goes to help Mary unpack the dishes. She glows when he enters the room, smiling at him and filling his stomach with nervous twists.

It’s a nice change, having his feelings reciprocated. A nice change.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

Transferring his own belongings from his old flat is a simpler process than John had imagined it would be.

Finding out that he owns virtually nothing is just as surprising and disappointing as it was when he moved out of 221B ages ago. The remainder of his clothes fit into one box; various books and medical journals and magazines fit into another; dishes and pots and pans take up two; his pictures and mementos from his life before it became an absolute mess barely take up a shoebox. With Sherlock helping, it’s only one trip before he’s moved out of his flat and back into his old bedroom.

And yet, the flat is still full. There are Mary’s clothes and Mary’s pictures and Mary’s books and Mary’s things - they’re everywhere, and returning and seeing the flat emptied of him and still full of her is suffocating.

He shouldn’t have to mourn her. He shouldn’t feel this at all.

He shuts and locks the door and doesn’t go back for a week and a half.

 

-

 

Hesitant and unwilling, John brings Mary’s engagement ring to a pawnbroker.

He isn’t sure when - or if - he’ll be able to get it back, but he won’t be able to pay rent without starving and he refuses to ask Sherlock for help. His pride and his remorse and his sentiment all fought for days before he finally just went and did it. The landlord wants him to go as soon as possible so a new tenant can be brought in almost immediately. He’s going to have to live through inordinate amounts of painful memories. He might as well start with this one.

 

-

 

“You don’t have to do this all at once,” Sherlock points out, sitting in what has become his designated ‘don’t touch anything else’ chair. He’d quickly complied when John looked as though he was about to have a breakdown over a newly-chipped picture frame.

“Yes, I do,” John sighs, carefully encasing another picture in bubble wrap. “It’s been nearly five months now. I can’t pay the rent alone anymore.”

“I can - “

“I don’t want help, either,” John interrupts, looking at him sternly. Sherlock presses his lips together tightly and nods. “I told the landlord I’d be out by next Friday, and I will.”

His throat feels thick as he packs away his wedding pictures. The pseudo-perfection of his wedding day comes back to him and an urge to throw them against a wall boils in his stomach.

He folds bubble wrap over them and closes the box with too much tape.

 

-

 

Eventually, the flat is emptied of everything but the furniture it came with. It looks the same as when they first moved in, and Sherlock was dead instead of Mary, and he was just as depressed as he is now. He’s come full circle, and he gives a bitter chuckle when he thinks it, shaking his head and sinking down onto the sofa.

At least Sherlock came back. He can’t imagine where he’d be if this had happened and Sherlock was still dead. Or out there, somewhere, he corrects himself; Sherlock was never dead.

Speak of the devil. There’s a light knock on the door before the hinges creak and Sherlock looks inside.

“You alright?”

He must have been waiting for John outside, waiting for him to carry out the last couple of boxes so they could leave this place behind forever.

John doesn’t say anything and Sherlock steps in, not-quite closing the door behind him. He strides over and sits beside John on the sofa, looking at him with concern. John doesn’t return the gaze, but looks around the unnaturally clean sitting room and works his jaw. He reaches to the side and takes Sherlock’s hand in his. He doesn't know what, exactly, compels him to do it, but the comfort he finds when Sherlock hesitantly, gently squeezes his hand in return is relieving.

“I don’t understand,” John mutters. Sherlock stares at him. “I should have hated her. After what she did to you. To me. After how much she lied. She kept so many secrets.” He swallows hard. “I should have hated her.”

“You loved her nonetheless,” Sherlock says. It sounds vaguely like a question.

“Yeah,” John breathes. He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t.” He sees Sherlock’s brows furrow out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t think I loved her. For awhile, I did. I had… all these feelings, after - ” He cuts off, to avoid saying something stupid. “I didn’t have anywhere to put them, and then I met her, and she was so… _good_. But not after she shot you. I think I’ve been mourning what she was before. I think I just couldn’t go through… this. Again.”

Sherlock turns his gaze to the floor and pulls his hand away. The action makes John’s eyes water and he blinks to push the tears back. “I thought, maybe, it would just work out. For some _stupid_ reason. I thought that having a kid would change something. I wouldn’t have been able to leave them. She would have had to change, somehow. I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t foolish.”

“It was.”

“It wasn’t,” Sherlock repeats. John shakes his head again and pushes himself off the couch.

“We should go,” he says. Sherlock rises when he steps away to pick up the last two boxes, sitting by the door.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

John turns to him and nods, managing a sad smile. “I’m sure.”

 

-

 

Lying in bed later on, John stares at the band still sitting snug on his left ring finger. He twists it off and puts it on his right, nodding definitively to himself before turning over and trying to fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

**IV.**

“Lestrade has been asking after you,” Sherlock says over breakfast. John hums in acknowledgement, sipping his tea. “He won’t shut up about some kind of pub night, or whatever you call it.”

“I know, he’s been texting.”

“Well, now he’s bothering _me_ about it.”

“ _Well_ , tell him to stop.”

“I _have_ ,” Sherlock huffs. “He’s annoyingly persistent.”

“So are you,” John replies, raising a brow at him. “I’m sure you’ll win out.”

“Just go with him so he’ll stop bothering me.”

John’s lips twitch downward. “I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”

Sherlock tries and fails to hide his concern. John wonders when he started caring so much about little things like this.

 

-

 

_I haven’t said anything to him about you. No offence, mate._

None taken. I think he’s just a bit concerned. -J. Watson

_Maybe you ought to listen to him._

Shouldn’t you be working? -J. Watson

_Shouldn’t you?_

 

-

 

“Are you going out?”

John glances over to where Sherlock is seated on the couch and nods with a lacklustre smile. “Yeah. I’m finally giving in to Greg’s will.”

Which is a lie; he’s going to a pub by himself to drink a pint and eat food that hasn’t been microwaved to within an inch of its life. For all Sherlock’s well-meaning behaviour, he can’t be bothered to cook when there’s already food in the house, and Mrs. Hudson made a casserole for them a few days ago that they’ve been reheating and refrigerating over and over again.

A smile quirks at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth and he goes back to his computer. “Very well.”

John rolls his eyes and smiles through the guilt he feels at lying to ease Sherlock’s genuine concern.

It’s admittedly a situation he never expected to be in.

 

-

 

As always, John realises that Sherlock was right; admittedly a bit too late into the evening. He should have gone with Greg, rather than on his own. He slumps into the foyer, barely remembering to shut the front door behind him, and kicks his shoes off. He walks slowly up the stairs, drunkenly feeling his way through the dark and hanging on to the banister with both hands.

It feels like he’s moving through molasses, his feet are so slow and clumsy, but he makes it up the stairs and into the flat. Sherlock seems to be mostly awake, lounging on the sofa, visible only in the light flashing from the telly. He looks up when he hears John shuffle through the door and watches as he slowly sheds his jacket and drops it on the floor next to the coat rack. John stares at the discarded garment and thinks through his next move - attempt another flight of stairs or fall asleep on the couch. He gives up a moment later and moves to sit down next to Sherlock’s feet.

Sherlock sits up quickly and climbs off the sofa, catching John as he’s halfway to sitting and hoisting him back up.

“Oi, what are you doing?” John demands, flailing slightly and trying to get ahold of his remaining balance by grabbing Sherlock’s shoulder.

“I’m taking you to bed,” Sherlock replies, leading John to the stairs.

John blinks a few times to think it through. _Is that something Sherlock would do?_   _He's never suggested it before._ “I didn’t know you did that,” he states bewilderedly.

Furrowing his brows, Sherlock glances down at him. “You’re drunk. You need to go to sleep.”

“Oh.” _So, he doesn’t, then_. He’s surprised, yet unsurprised, at the small pang of disappointment he feels. Probably has something to do with how little sex he's had for the past few months. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“I lied,” John mumbles, tripping on the second step. Sherlock keeps a good hold on him and doesn’t let him fall over. “I didn’t go with Greg.”

“I know.”

John tries to get a good look at Sherlock’s face. It’s too dark to see much, but he looks a bit disappointed. “Did you know all along?” he asks.

“Yes,” Sherlock replies. “You don’t give in to anyone’s will, as you’ve been demonstrating since the day I met you. And I can tell when you’re lying, whether it’s a good lie or not.”

“Oh,” John says again. He follows along as Sherlock brings him to the top of the stairs and pushes the door in. He goes to fumble for the light switch, but Sherlock brushes his hand away and does it himself. Sherlock deposits him on the foot of the bed, turns on the lamp on the side table, and retrieves his pyjamas from a chair in the corner, handing them to him.

“Try not to be too terribly hungover in the morning,” he says, striding to the door. “I’ve a few cases to work and it’s hard to do when you’re groaning about your headache.”

The guilt that John felt earlier in the evening surfaces again through his clouded mind and he nods complacently. Sherlock flips the light off and shuts the door, leaving John alone and feeling worse than he did when he was sober.

 

* * *

 

**(Seven Years Ago.)**

Sholto stifles John’s drunken giggles with long kisses that make John feel like he’s floating on air. He laughs brightly as his fingers curl in the waistband of James’s trousers and they nearly trip over the bed as John poorly manoeuvres them around the room.

“You’re going to get us caught,” Sholto whispers, grinning dumbly.

“Oh, everyone’s as drunk as we are,” John mumbles. Sholto’s eyes are twinkling in the dim light and it makes his heart skip a beat. “No one will notice at all. They’ll be happier in our absence.”

“Fancy words for someone who can’t walk in a straight line.”

John giggles and stretches up on his toes to wrap himself around the Major.

 

* * *

 

**V.**

He wakes up crying, face wet and cold in the stagnant early morning air. He clutches a pillow to his stomach and lets himself mourn what his life was supposed to be and how he was supposed to feel and how terrible and empty and broken he is now

 

-

 

Sherlock won’t speak to him when he comes downstairs. John doesn’t say anything about his throbbing head or his churning stomach, and merely grimaces to himself when Sherlock roots around in a cupboard full of flasks and beakers that clink together louder than he thought was possible. He takes paracetamol and makes hangover food and quietly reads in his chair. Sherlock solves cases over email and makes loud noises in the kitchen.

It feels less familiar than it should. It feels strange and new and wrong because Sherlock is disappointed in him and that stings more than John could ever have imagined.

 

-

 

“I - ah. I’m sorry.”

Sherlock glances up and back to his computer in less than a second. “It’s fine,” he says, typing pointedly quicker. Trying to make himself look too busy to talk; John remembers that much. It used to be one of his weakest defence tactics against negotiating household chores.

“No, it isn’t,” John replies firmly. “I lied to you. I betrayed your trust. Granted, you knew I was lying, but - it doesn’t matter. I apologise for lying to you.”

The typing slows briefly and Sherlock’s lips twitch downward. “It’s fine,” he repeats. His voice is softer even as his typing speeds up again and John knows it’s going to be okay, at least for now.

 

-

 

On a good day, just a few nights later, John suggests a movie night. Sherlock, with his newfound enthusiasm for anything John suggests doing, agrees immediately. He has Sherlock set up the Netflix on the telly because for the life of him he still can’t figure out how to hook it all up, and instead goes out and gets their Thai takeaway. Sherlock had been hesitant to let him go, and the walk down the street calmed his frustration from how pitied he'd felt.

They eat on the sofa and watch the newest Bond movie.

For the first twenty minutes, Sherlock is silent. John can practically feel him vibrating with how badly he wants to make a comment.

“You can talk, you know,” John says.

He barely gets the sentence out before Sherlock exhales a long winded explanation of how unlikely it is that the head of MI6 wouldn’t have any extra security in her home after her office was unrealistically blown up. John smiles through his rambling and listens happily to him throughout the rest of the movie instead of paying attention to what’s happening.

Sherlock falls asleep nearing the end of the film and slumps over, his bony shoulder jabbing John’s arm.

John remembers when it used to be impossible to get him to go to bed before one in the morning. He nudges Sherlock until he’s awake enough to mindlessly shuffle to his room. When John hears his door click shut he turns off the telly, cleans up their mess, and heads to sleep with a smile.

 

* * *

 

**VI.**

“It’s the holidays, dear; you always loved decorating for the holidays.” Mrs. Hudson gives him a sympathetic, almost pleading look as she sets a box of faerie lights on the coffee table.

John remembers his first Christmas after Sherlock died, and last Christmas at the Holmes’. Trying to find some way to just _get over_ what had happened in his life, both times. Trying to live with the image of his best friend’s death vivid in his mind. Trying to cope with the discovery of his wife’s literally murderous secrets. Trying to figure out how to just move on and live a normal fucking life.

“I’m just not feeling up to it right now,” he tells her with a tired smile.

She sighs and shakes her head. “A little holiday cheer would do you well, luv.”

She goes about pulling apart strings of lights, seemingly determined whether or not John wants to help her. He watches stubbornly for a moment before his resolve dissipates with a sigh. He pulls a knot of lights out of the box and gets to untangling.

They decorate the flat, sans Christmas tree, and then John helps Mrs. Hudson with hers. When Sherlock comes home with one hand full of groceries and the other full of various body parts, he doesn’t make any snide comments about the decorations.

John wishes he would. He craves normality. He craves Sherlock’s indifferent snobbery and sarcastic attitude. He craves his best friend, the one he knew years ago. He craves an unchanged, unscarred life.

 

-

 

Greg comes by with an armful of cold case files and an invitation to a small holiday get-together.

“Just some of the officers from Scotland Yard and a few friends,” he promises.

John bites his tongue. He knows Sherlock must be boring holes into the back of his head and that there’s no way to get out of it. If he makes an excuse, Sherlock will pipe up saying that the clinic had called and, actually, they don’t need anyone extra on Friday, and John will be embarrassed, and Greg will be uncomfortable.

“Yeah, alright,” he says. “But, ah - ” He turns to look over his shoulder and smiles sardonically. “ - Sherlock will be coming, too.”

Sherlock looks up from his pile of cold cases and narrows his eyes, then takes a breath and wipes his expression. “Sounds like fun,” he says pleasantly, smiling at Lestrade, who looks between them both and tries to figure out the catch before John shoos him out of the flat, bitter that Sherlock went along with his suggestion.

 

-

 

The Christmas party is bland. Everyone is drunk other than he and Sherlock. Sherlock because he hates the feeling, and John because Sherlock hasn’t taken eyes off him for more than the two minutes he took to go to the loo. Lestrade is blind drunk; he flirts with Molly, who laughs and trips over everything.

He regrets accepting the invitation, which he expected to happen. He regrets making Sherlock come along, which he could have seen coming. If he’d left Sherlock behind he could have had something to drink. He hasn’t had a drop of alcohol for two weeks since he came home drunk, and the party is depressing enough to make him feel like the Sahara made a home in his throat.  

He wants to go home, which they don’t do until midnight, without hardly a word as a goodbye. The cab ride is quiet. Sherlock doesn’t use his phone as much as he used to.

John always used to wonder who he was texting all the time. He almost never bothered to tell Lestrade a thing, he didn’t dare talk to his brother unless it was absolutely necessary. John was always in the cab with him. He must have been keeping up appearances.

He must not care to look important around John anymore.

 

-

 

Sherlock doesn’t make a single comment about John’s Christmas jumper, which used to warrant endless insults. It never bothered him before. It was just what they did. They don’t, now.

 

-

 

“I’m not going to break,” John says. It catches Sherlock’s attention, which had been firmly set on a cold case file for the past twenty minutes. “If you insult me,” he clarifies. “I won’t dissolve into hysterical tears and go drink myself to death.”

“I didn’t assume you would,” Sherlock replies. It’s not a confident sounding response.

“Sure you didn’t,” John mumbles.

“You think I did?”

“Well, you haven’t exactly been yourself.”

“I don’t understand,” Sherlock says dumbly.

“You haven’t said a single word about anything!” John explodes, just about knocking his tea off the desk. “About the flat decorations or my jumpers or - or those cold cases,” he adds forcefully, jabbing a finger at the pictures spread across the coffee table. “You hate cold cases. You’ve always hated cold cases. And you’ve always made sport of complaining. What happened to, ‘John, everyone’s an idiot,’ and ‘John, your hair looks ridiculous,’ and, ‘John, I haven’t had a case for weeks, I’m about to murder someone myself?’ For god’s sake, I took you to a _Christmas party_. It’s been three days and you haven’t said _anything_ about it.

“You’ve hardly left the flat,” he continues, almost feverish from how long he’s been holding this all in. “You hate being cooped up, and you hate working from home, and I hate when you work from home because you used to make a bloody mess of things but now you don’t. There’s no mess. It’s practically spotless every evening. You don’t tack things to the walls and make intricate webs and burn bits of the wallpaper with cigarette butts anymore. You’re treating me like any little thing will make me explode and I... just realised that in shouting all of this I may have.... proved you right,” he finishes awkwardly. His lips press into a tight line and he watches Sherlock watching him with a puzzled expression.

“You want me to make a mess,” Sherlock says eventually.

“Yes,” John sighs, slumping back into his chair. “No. I never want you to make a mess on purpose, you don’t need to run around the flat tossing things upside-down, just…” He trails off, crossing his arms. “Just go back to being you. You make messes, and you complain, and I know you aren’t doing any of it because you think it’ll drive me mad, or break me, or something else ridiculous. It’s - it’s nice that you care, but just. Go back to being you. _Please_ ,” he adds, his tone close to desperate. His gaze falls to the carpet and he ignores the slight burning in his cheeks. It’s awkward and quiet and he wants to retreat to his room and wake up four years ago.

“The faerie lights are garish and the foyer looks like something out of an elf’s nightmare,” Sherlock comments, shoving files and pictures haphazardly into a manila folder. “Never bring me to one of Lestrade’s holiday parties ever again, or I may kill him and everyone under his employ.” He tosses the folder onto the desk, barely missing John’s mug, and goes to pull his coat off the rack near the door. “Go to bed. Staying up until midnight and sleeping until noon is my forte, not yours.”

“And where are you going?” John sputters, shocked and pleased at Sherlock’s change in behaviour. It was like flipping the switch to a floodgate of pent up stress.

“Scotland Yard,” Sherlock replies, shoving his phone and wallet into his coat pocket. “Greg’s been trying to get me on a double homicide for a week and a half now, and he won’t be off work for another half hour. I’ll just have to deal with the new forensics team. They’re abysmal. I can’t believe I miss Anderson’s blundering work.” He pulls on his gloves and scarf fluidly and it’s like a vivid throwback to their first day together, ages and ages ago. John can’t believe how strongly he missed the sight.

“ _Bed_ ,” Sherlock repeats with a stern glare, and then he’s out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why did you need so badly to make it work?” Sherlock clarifies. There’s a surprising bitterness to his tone that makes John look up at him.
> 
> “Because I’m tired of losing people,” John says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another years-long hug for elizabeth [jwlives](http://www.jwlives.tumblr.com) that's really just closer to clinging lovingly for editing this piece, i love you so much alkdfghkdjfhg

**I.**

Staring up at the ceiling through the dark of his room, John can’t sleep, unable to stop glancing at the phone charging on his bedside table.

Sherlock didn’t ask him to come along. He’d told Sherlock to go back to being himself, and instead of inviting John along, he’d sent John to bed.

Worse, John _went_. Like a child. He waited until he heard the front door shut, then trudged up to bed, and has been lying here ever since, alone at two in the morning on Christmas Eve.

 _This is what you wanted_ , he thinks. _You wanted Sherlock to go back to being himself. But you wanted him to be himself with you. You wanted to go back to being yourself, too._

 

-

 

A banging sound from downstairs jolts John awake and he nearly jumps out of bed, hand on the knob of his bedside table, ready to grab his gun if need be. There’s another bang and an inspired, “Aha!” and John relaxes. He doesn’t remember falling asleep and the scare makes his heart race.

It’s been ages since adrenaline in his veins felt so damn good. His hands are steady and his mind is clear and the throwback to what his life ought to have been is harrowing.

It could have been just be the way it was supposed to be if he’d just left her when Sherlock came back. They could be okay. They could be _them_ again, Sherlock and John, but he’d been so damn proud and insistent on moving on and proving to _himself_ , of all people, that he was fine, and now he’s ruined everything. God, he’s ruined everything good he’s ever had.

 

* * *

 

**(Seven Years Ago.)**

“Are you okay?”

John looks up with a sad smile. “Yeah, I’m alright,” he says. “Second Christmas without family. I’ll get used to it at some point.”

James sits down beside him and places a careful hand on his lower back. “I thought your family functions were… dysfunctional. For lack of a better word,” he says, smiling.

John chortles softly and leans into him. “Yeah, well. It’s mostly my mum that I miss, but she died a year before I shipped out. The holidays aren’t the same without her, but we tried to keep visiting and being a family.” He works his jaw. “My dad never really approved of Harry or I, so. Bit tense without mum there.”

“Approved?” James asks.

“You know,” John says. Sholto’s gaze remains unenlightened and John gestures between them. “Harry’s gay, I’m bi, he’s a conservative old prick,” he explains.

“Oh,” James mutters. “Yes, of course.”

“Anyhow, it’s getting late,” John says. He leans over and pecks Sholto’s cheek. “You should probably go.”

“Go? Why?”

John huffs a laugh. “Because it’s the holiday and it’s nearly lights out and we’ve been spending quite a lot of time together after lights out,” he says, smirking. “Not everyone’s an idiot, and if you stay any longer I’m going to end up doing terrible things to you, and someone will eventually figure it out.”

“Right,” James says, slowly.

“Right,” John repeats. “So. Happy Christmas, you.” He smiles and leans in to kiss James, who reciprocates a half second late and pulls away too soon.

“Happy Christmas, Watson,” he says, smiling quickly. Confusions shrouds John’s expression but the Major is up and out the door before he can ask any questions.

 

* * *

 

**II.**

Sherlock solves the case within the day and takes on two more, bouncing off the walls with the energy he’s been storing up for months. It’s brilliant to watch and even more incredible to be a part of, but after repeatedly rejecting opportunities to jump on cases, John is afraid to ask to come onboard, or even about little details.

After an hour and a half Sherlock has a lead on both of them and runs out of the flat, leaving John in his chair with his heart in his stomach.

  


-

 

The door creaks open at one in the morning, far past the point of John giving up on trying to sleep. He looks up from where he’s lying on the couch and blearily watching television.

“‘Lo,” he mumbles, squinting over at Sherlock.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” Sherlock asks with a frown. “We made an agreement.”

“We didn’t make an agreement, you decided something and I never said whether or not I would comply.” John stretches, arching his back, and then flops back against the couch cushions. “Anyway, it’s Christmas morning,” he adds with a yawn. “Happy Christmas.” The late hour is starting to get to him and he feels a heavy blanket of sleep settling on top of him, making him yawn again.

Sherlock smiles softly. “Happy Christmas,” he murmurs, grabbing a blanket off of John’s chair. He walks over to the sofa and shakes the blanket out, setting it on top of John. “If you won’t go to bed, at least keep from freezing in the middle of the night. It’d make for a rubbish Christmas.”

“You always think Christmas is rubbish,” John mumbles, pulling the blanket up and around his shoulders. Sherlock merely hums in reply on his way out of the room. John briefly wonders what Sherlock’s childhood Christmases were like to make him hate the holiday so much.

They were probably wonderful; he loves being melodramatic.

 

* * *

 

**(One Year Ago.)**

“What cause do you have to arrest me?” Magnussen spits, jerking against the hands holding his arms behind his back.

Mycroft stares at him coldly, lips pursed. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that by morning I’ll have no less than twenty,” he states.

The officers restraining Magnussen pull him away and Mycroft looks harshly at Sherlock, who’s holding John’s gun by his fingertips. Mycroft follows his officers and John rounds Sherlock, leaning up into his face.

“Sherlock, what the _fuck_ were you thinking?” he snaps. He reaches and takes his gun from Sherlock’s shell-shocked fingers. “What, were you going to _kill_ him? What good would that have done? You’d get us both arrested, you might’ve gotten yourself sent to prison, what the _fuck_ were you thinking?”

Sherlock stares after Mycroft blindly, unblinking.

“Sherlock,” John hisses again, “ _snap out of it_.”

“He’s gone,” Sherlock whispers.

 

* * *

 

**(Now.)**

They both sleep in until near ten, after which Mrs. Hudson wakes them and berates them for sleeping in so late on Christmas morning (and John twice as much for sleeping on the couch instead of his bed). She makes them both tea and breakfast and talks the whole while about anything that comes to mind, not bothering to pause and give either of them a chance to speak, for which they’re both silently grateful. They raise brows at each other and huff quietly into their mugs with small smiles, letting her totter on about nothing. She gives them both a hug and a plate of food before she goes back down to her flat to make holiday calls to relatives.

John and Sherlock eat in silence, neither of them mentioning the three cases that Sherlock worked or the way John waited up for him all night. John wonders if Sherlock had missed having him along, or if getting out alone was a relief he’d been waiting for since the previous January. They occasionally clear their throats, one looking up at the other when it happens, waiting for some kind of conversation to spur.

When he finishes, Sherlock rises from the table, leaving his dirtied dishes behind as he swans off to his room. John shakes his head with a nostalgic smirk and cleans off the table. He pretends that it’s only tidy around the flat because Sherlock complied for the holidays, which never happened, even in the past. In a few days it’ll be covered in a scientific mess again, he imagines, and he’ll be complaining, and Sherlock will be shrugging him off.

The sound of Sherlock clearing his throat once more sounds from behind John and he looks over his shoulder from the sink. “Alright?” he asks.

“I got you something,” Sherlock replies, shifting his feet awkwardly. He holds out a small package in John’s direction.

“Oh,” John murmurs, reaching over to dry his hands on a dish towel. He takes the little box from Sherlock and stares at it. They’ve never exchanged gifts before - it was never discussed, but for their first Christmas they were just roommates, and then there was an absence of Christmases together, and then he and Mary were together, and everything was tense and strange. It holds him back from opening the package, simply staring down at the little box.

“Mrs. Hudson wrapped it,” Sherlock says, nervously filling the quiet air. “I can’t wrap gifts, never have been able to, can’t figure out why. Can’t use cling film either, it just sticks to itself and ends up in a little plastic ball. I much prefer aluminium foil, but you can’t wrap a gift in aluminium foil. I think. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do.”

John looks up at him and nods dumbly. Lips pursed, he gently tears off the tape and wrapping and opens the little box. His heart pounds in his throat at the sight of Mary’s engagement ring.

“I knew you’d gotten rid of it,” Sherlock continues, staring slightly off to the side, “and I knew you hadn’t wanted to. I may have followed you, a bit, and bought it back from the pawnbroker for you, and I’ve kept it until I thought it would be okay to give it back to you, and then I remembered that you typically are fond of Christmas, and - ”

“Thank you,” John whispers, still staring at it. “I - thank you.”

Sherlock swallows thickly and nods. “I just… figured that you were already doing a lot at once, and moving on, so you might… want it back.”

“Yes. Thank you,” John says again, unable to think of anything else to say. “I… I didn’t - ”

“I know. You needn’t have, anyhow. I’ve never been a holiday person. Gift giving is an activity I don’t typically practise.” His tone is soft and benevolent and sends flutters through John’s chest. He doesn’t look up at Sherlock, just clutches the little box and gazes past it at the floor.

He was strong enough to get rid of this and be done, and yet, here it is again. There isn’t an ounce of him that wants it back, but he finds his throat too tight to say so.

It’s been inexplicable to John why Sherlock would work so hard to defend and redeem someone who as good as killed him, but it’s becoming quite clear now that it was all to make him happy. Everything Sherlock has done since he came back from the dead was to make John happy.

He holds the box tighter and nods, turning and shuffling out of the kitchen. He keeps it on his person all day, even as he watches Sherlock serenade the city with his violin that night. His silhouette is outlined by the lights of the flat against the dark of the city flooding through the window.

The familiarity of the sight thickens his throat. It reminds him of the holidays nearly five years ago, when he sat exactly where he is now. He was sickeningly in love with the same, and strikingly different, man before him.

 

-

 

On New Year’s Eve, John has a glass of scotch without any complaints from Sherlock. They mostly sit in silence, the telly on but practically muted, flashing light across the dim sitting room. Sherlock goes through emails relentlessly, seemingly determined on making this a record year. John reads.

It’s been awhile since he’s been able to read happily. Since Sherlock faked his death, reading has either been too much work or something for his eyes to do while his mind runs off somewhere else. Now, he holds his old copy of _Watership Down_ and happily reads it for the umpteenth time since his mum first read it to him when he was a kid.

The bell eventually tolls midnight, and it occurs to John that neither of them have moved for hours, not since they had dinner at sometime near eight. He blinks blearily a few times and dog-ears his page, not expecting to pick back up in the morning. He stands, stretches, and looks over to where Sherlock lounges on the couch, still typing without break.

His eyes settle on Sherlock’s lips for a grand three seconds before he blinks again. “Night, Sherlock,” he mumbles.

“Happy New Year, John,” Sherlock says, not looking up from his computer. John hums pleasantly and hopes that phrase holds true.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

Footsteps crunch against the frosted grass and pause a few feet behind John. He knows it’s Sherlock, but looks over his shoulder to be sure nevertheless. He nods when he sees the coat-clad man looking at him apprehensively, then turns back to the headstones in front of him.

“May I join you?” Sherlock asks.

“Yeah,” John mumbles. Sherlock walks up to him, awkwardly lowering himself to the grass next to John.

They sit in relative silence, traffic sounds drifting softly from the road. Their breath puffs up in clouds in the cold air. It feels like there should be birds. Crows, or ravens.

“You ought to migrate in winter,” Sherlock says. “The warmth suits you better than this weather.”

John huffs a breathy laugh and reaches a hand over to loosely wrap around Sherlock’s, squeezing once. A light shade of pink flushes Sherlock’s cheeks but he squeezes in return.

“How’d you figure I was here, then?” John asks.

“I saw… I went into your room,” Sherlock admits. “The box was gone.”

John sighs softly and nods, as though that ought to have been obvious to him. “‘Course,” he says. “Did you know?”

“...Yes, I saw the box, or rather, its absence - ”

“No,” John interrupts. He doesn’t look away from the headstones. “No, did you know that she would die? The both of them. Did you know?”

There’s an uncomfortable silence and for just a moment John hopes that Sherlock will say yes. He could be angry - if Sherlock knew and never told him, John could shout at him. Ask him why he didn’t bother to say anything, yell himself hoarse over Sherlock letting him grieve without any warning _again_.

“No,” Sherlock says, giving John no rational reason to be cross with him. His hand retracts and Sherlock looks at him. “No, I never knew.”

The bit of anger growing in John’s stomach extinguishes itself and he grows weary again. “Figures. But you knew that she wasn’t mine, didn’t you?”

Sherlock gives him a bewildered look. “I don’t understand.”

“Our daughter,” John clarifies. He avoids Sherlock’s gaze. “She wasn’t mine.”

“You... knew?” Sherlock asks hesitantly.

The muscles of John’s jaw clench and he looks up at Sherlock angrily. Sherlock tenses in reaction, like he’s expecting a physical attack; John figures that isn’t something he should be proud of, his best friend being afraid of him, but it makes him feel a bit better. “Yeah, I knew,” he nearly spits. “I take it you did, too.”

A sheet of guilt blankets Sherlock’s expression and John shakes his head, looking away.

“I can’t have kids,” he confesses. “They told me ages ago. Some genetic thing. And then all that mess happened, and I found out that my wife was pregnant with some other guy’s kid. On our wedding day.” He scoffs and shakes his head. “God, my life is like a fucking soap. My best friend fakes his death and my wife cheats on me and I _still_ just… I tried to make it work anyway. Just like I tried to make our friendship work. Didn’t work in either situation. You relapsed, she… shot you. Christ. I can’t believe I tried to make it work.” He purses his lips so hard they go white.

Sherlock stares at him, and then down at the ground. “Why?” he asks.

“Because it was fucking ridiculous of me,” John mutters.

“Why did you need so badly to make it work?” Sherlock clarifies. There’s a surprising bitterness to his tone that makes John look up at him.

“Because I’m tired of losing people,” John says. It sounds like an accusation and Sherlock shrinks away from it. John sees his hands wringing in his lap.

There’s a still, silent coldness between them. John eventually rises from the ground and starts heading toward the exit of the cemetery. He gets a good metre away before he hears Sherlock following him. It’s bizarre. Backwards. John always used to follow him. For a year, Sherlock has been doing it instead. He wonders if things will ever go back to normal.

Sherlock hails the cab when they make it to the kerb. He holds the door for John. John tells the cabby their address. When they’ve taken off, Sherlock pulls out his phone and busies himself. It brings a familiar smile to John’s face.

 

* * *

 

**(Seven Years Ago.)**

Cool light starts to slink into the room and John squeezes his eyes shut. Five more minutes. Five more minutes. He presses himself closer to James and hides his face in the Major’s shoulder.

His eyes fly open. _The Major’s shoulder_. He jolts upright, jostling James to wakeness.

“Shit,” John hisses. He throws back the sheets and slings himself out of bed.

“John?” Sholto whispers groggily.

“It’s almost sunrise,” John whispers back frantically. “Shit. _Shit_. I didn’t mean to stay the night.”

He grabs his clothes off the floor and hurriedly throws them on.

“John, it’s fine,” Sholto insists.

“It’s unprofessional,” John hisses. “It’s a threat to our careers.”

“Why bother continuing, then?” Sholto asks. He sits up and gives John a piercing look.

“James,” John starts, eyes softening sadly.

“Go,” Sholto says. “Get out before they all wake up.”

“James,” John says again.

“That’s an order.”

They stare each other down and John works his jaw, then leaves, barely remembering not to slam the door.

 

* * *

 

**(Three Years Ago.)**

“Are you sure you don’t want to do this alone?” Mary asks, squeezing John’s hand gently.

“I’ve been doing this alone for almost two years,” John says. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

She smiles reassuringly at him and they both look down at Sherlock’s headstone. John lets out a long sigh at the black marble, his grief still incredibly overwhelming in comparison to how much time has passed. It almost feels wrong to bring Mary here. It feels like he’s seeking out Sherlock’s approval in moving on, instead of seeking solace in someone he loves when faced with the object of his grief.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” he repeats, as though he needs to remind himself of the fact.

 

* * *

 

**IV.**

_“Please, let me through,” he begs, wrestling the chains holding him to the ground. His arms and legs are held behind him by the clanking metal and it hurts. It hurts in his limbs and his chest and **god** in his head, it’s throbbing and pounding and he sobs from it. The clinical brightness of the O.R. sharpens the aching; it’s blinding. He feels like his eyes might start bleeding._

_The thought triggers action and the chains vanish. He neglects to soothe the rubbed-in wounds that the chains left around his wrists and ankles and instead rises to his feet so quickly that his head spins. The operating table is covered with a sheet, splashed with blood, particularly thickly near the head end. He shakes as he pulls it back, wondering briefly where the nurses all went off to._

_It’s Sherlock under the sheet, not Mary. He’d been expecting Mary, but here’s Sherlock, eyes shut, face and hair soaked with blood. Drenched. Rivulets of the warm, sticky liquid run off the table and on to the floor, puddling around John’s covered shoes. His brain is exposed - when he fell, when he jumped, he must have cracked his skull. Broke his bones. His whole body looks frail and crushed._

_It’s Sherlock. John’s heart pounds. How can he save Sherlock?_

_He doesn’t get the chance. Sherlock’s eyes fly open, scleras reddened with the blood that must be flooding his skull, and he bores them into John. His hand comes up from under the sheet, holding, unmistakably, John’s Browning. Sherlock reaches up and presses the muzzle snugly against John’s temple, then fires._

 

-

 

John wakes from the nightmare and immediately thinks that he might throw up. He tosses the duvet back and stumbles out of his room and into the adjoining bathroom. He kneels, forehead pressed to the cool porcelain of the toilet. He heaves breath instead of the contents of his stomach. His hand clutches a fistful of his shirt and he shakes. He shakes so hard that the force of it makes him feel even worse.

It’s ten minutes before he manages to get back to his feet. He flushes the toilet despite never having been sick, just to feel like the ordeal is officially over.

He splashes his face with warm water and stares at himself in the mirror. His skin has a horrible pallor and he feels like death. It’s fitting, considering the dream, and his stomach lurches. He shuffles back to bed and hunkers down.

It takes an hour to fall back asleep, and even when he does, it’s fitful, and he wakes four hours later looking as poorly as he did before. Sherlock stares at him all throughout breakfast, clearly knowing exactly what happened, and leaving for work is a welcome escape.

 

-

 

He hasn’t felt this drained in weeks. His feet trudge the stairs instead of climb. It takes an enormous effort to open the door to the flat. His coat and bag fall to the floor and he drops himself onto the end of the sofa, hardly minding that Sherlock is lounging across the whole thing. His feet shift awkwardly, half stuck between John’s arse and the couch.

“Are you alright?” he asks, staring unblinkingly.

John tips his head back and watches the ceiling. “M’fine,” he manages, sinking into the sofa. He covered the tail end of someone else’s shift to avoid coming back, and he doesn’t want to talk. He keeps seeing Sherlock, dead, behind his eyelids.

Sherlock seems to get the message and simply shifts his feet until they aren’t trapped, then shoves his toes beneath John’s thigh as if to keep them warm. It makes John smile faintly. His hand comes up and settles on Sherlock’s shin fondly.

He doesn’t close his eyes. He can see Sherlock, still staring though with slightly wider eyes, in his peripheral vision.

“Thank you,” he murmurs after awhile. “For everything.”

“Of course,” Sherlock mumbles in return. “For you, anything.”

In the past, John wouldn’t have believed him. He’s almost grateful for a tragedy that opened his eyes to someone who genuinely gives a damn about him and probably always has. Probably always will. It was worth it, this much hurt, to know that Sherlock always cared as much as he does, if not more.

They stay there for the rest of the night - John turns on the telly and watches something rubbish, arm resting on Sherlock’s legs, and Sherlock does god-only-knows on his computer. Around midnight he starts to drift off and Sherlock nudges him and tells him to go to bed. It doesn’t take much convincing.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes as he rises from the couch.

Sherlock hums in reply and continues typing.

“You ought to go to bed, too, you know.” He stares at Sherlock from the doorway. “You’re taking cases again, you should be well rested.”

Sherlock keeps typing, and John keeps staring. Gazing, really. He’s too tired to be stern. The day has been endless.

Eventually, Sherlock looks up. “Are you going to stand there until I do?” he asks. John simply nods, smiling a bit. Lips twisting with what John knows is feigned disdain, Sherlock shuts his computer and heads toward his room.

“Good night!” John calls, smiling.

“Go to sleep!”

Sherlock’s door shuts loudly but doesn’t slam and John chuckles as he turns to walk up the stairs.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thought is sudden and terrifying; he absolutely would have ended up with Sherlock, and he knows exactly what the implications of the thought mean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to [jwlives](www.jwlives.tumblr.com) for some editing! this chapter is mostly edited by me, though, so any mistakes are entirely mine :)

**I.**

When John gets up for work in the morning, Sherlock is already awake and at their desk, papers spread out haphazardly over the surface.

“What’s that?” he asks, striding to look over Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Lestrade called about six,” Sherlock replies. He doesn’t look up, attacking various sentences with an orange highlighter. “There might be a new serial murderer. He’s been working a double homicide case, which he didn’t let me in on until just now - ”

“Mm, shame he’s trying to do his own job for once,” John interjects.

“Isn’t it? There was another double homicide this morning, supposedly the same to the smallest detail, and since I didn’t get to see the other crime scene, I’m going over notes.”

The entire page, John notices, is covered in a rainbow of different highlighted sections. He supposes it makes sense to Sherlock, so he shrugs and walks toward the kitchen. “Sounds interesting,” he says, filling the kettle.

“Quite,” Sherlock replies.

They don’t speak again until John sits at the desk with his tea and toast.

“Would you like to come with?” Sherlock asks. He doesn’t look up from the notes, hunched over and hiding his face.

John hesitates, but not because he doesn’t want to. He does. He desperately wants to be in on the case, and this is the first time Sherlock has asked him along since he started working again. “I - I’ve got work,” he replies, hoping Sherlock will tell him to blow it off.

There’s a visible fall in the posture of Sherlock’s shoulders. “Of course,” he says, clearly trying to maintain the same nonchalant tone from before.  “Forgot.”

It’s not the truth, and they both know it; Sherlock had been hopeful. He wanted John to skip out on his responsibilities and run off to solve a mystery, like they used to. God knows John does, too, but he can’t afford to skive off work.

John takes a slow breath in. “Will you still be working this tonight?” he asks. “I mean - that is, if you haven’t got it all by then - I’m sure you could, but - ”

“I’ll still be working it,” Sherlock interrupts, straightening his back.

John’s lips quirk up. “Give me the run-down,” he says, leaning forward. Sherlock looks up at him and grins.

 

-

 

John goes through patients faster than he has for a year. When they start to get off topic, talking about their kids, their ruddy jobs, the weather, he puts them back on track and asks about any other ailments that have been afflicting them. They bristle at it a bit, but they answer. He writes their prescription slips. They leave. The next comes in.

His boss offers to take on his last two patients of the day and he just about kisses her.

“Are you sure?” he asks, though he’s already gathering up his things.

“I haven’t seen you this animated in months, of course I’m sure,” she replies with a smile.

He grins back and hurries out, coat half-on and bag still open.

 

-

 

True to his word, Sherlock is still working when John gets home, although it’s clear he took a break to do some minor redecorating. Their armchairs are shoved to opposite sides of the room and the rug is covered in papers.

Sherlock indicates a stack of manila folders. “Victims pile.”

John nods in understanding.

He points to another, near the fireplace. “Police and forensic reports.” Then another. “Suspects pile.”

“There’s quite a lot here for just the four murders,” John comments, picking up a folder off the victims pile. The papers inside are highlighted to all hell.

“More than four murders,” Sherlock says. “Eight murders.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” John sputters, “what, did four more happen in seven hours?”

“He’s been keeping them from me,” Sherlock says bitterly. “Two more pairs of victims, the same as the others. A father and a son. Fifty-five and five. The fathers stabbed, the sons shot.”

“No trace evidence?”

“If there was trace evidence I wouldn’t be here, I’d be giving a report in Lestrade’s office.”

“Cocky,” John snorts.

“Realistic.” Sherlock sighs and runs a hand through his hair, which he’s clearly been doing all day, because it’s a mess. He smells faintly of cigarettes and John frowns. “The motive is clear but I’ve only had a chance to examine the one crime scene; the others were cleaned up, if you can even say that.”

“What do you mean?” John asks, brows furrowed.

“The scenes were already spotless. No blood, no fingerprints, no bullet casings, no anything. They all reeked of bleach. If they were all just like this one, it’s clear enough that the murderer knows what she’s doing.”

“She?”

“Crimes of passion and revenge.” He waves a hand dismissively. “Not the point. She likely does or has worked in law and forensics.”

"That, or she has obsessive-compulsive disorder," John suggests jokingly.

"Careful and clean doesn't necessarily mean obsessive-compulsive."

John shrugs, moving on to the next victim folder. “Don’t count it out.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Sherlock mutters, aggressively highlighting a police report.

 

-

 

There’s a general air of pride around John for the remainder of the week. He’d been right; on his first case back with Sherlock, he’d been the one to figure out the distinguishing factor of the murderer.

Every one of the fathers had been fifty-five, and stabbed five times. The sons had been five. Always killed in the kitchen, which was always scrubbed to within an inch of its life. The victims had been cleaned as well, and each case had taken place two weeks apart, on the fifth day of the week, at five in the morning.

The murderer had been a woman, like Sherlock said. She’d been cheated on by her husband of five years, who moved out and took their son with him. She obsessed over it for so long that she started taking revenge, but she still loved her husband and son, so she killed other fathers and sons.

There are only so many fathers of fifty-five with five year old sons in London. Lestrade has his team track all of them down and an officer was stationed at each of their homes on the morning of the nineteenth of February. It took all of an hour to catch her. Her medical records showed counselling for her anxiety disorder.

Out of the corner of his eye, John could see Sherlock looking at him like he was an enigma.

 

-

 

When he has the chance, John snoops around the flat and tries to find where Sherlock is hiding his cigarettes. It’s becoming more and more obvious that he’s back to it again. He kept stepping out during the case and coming back far less wired than he was before.

He finds the pack in Sherlock’s violin case and sighs, fitting it back where it was. It won’t do him any good to go and frustrate Sherlock just as they’re getting back to things being good. He’ll deal with it later.

 

-

 

In the middle of the night he wonders what would have happened if Mary and their daughter had lived, or if she’d lived but their daughter hadn’t. He wonders if he’d have left her. He wonders if, in an obsessive bout of revenge, she would have killed him.

He wonders why he put himself in the position of “unfaithful husband” when it was the other way around the entire time, but he knows that it’s because, had he had the chance, he would have ended up back with Sherlock one way or another.

The thought is sudden and terrifying; he absolutely would have ended up with Sherlock, and he knows exactly what the implications of the thought mean.

 

-

 

The day after they finish the case paperwork John finds himself staring at Sherlock’s chest, wondering if the scar there looks anything like his own.

It shouldn’t. Sherlock’s never got infected, though god knows he gave it every opportunity. No, it should be hardly visible, not like John’s.

Sherlock finally gives up on pretending he doesn’t notice and gives John a questioning look. John finds himself wanting to apologise - for staring, and for spending so long grieving someone who put a bullet in the person who means the most to him.

“Thai for dinner?” John asks. A smile molds the wrinkles around Sherlock’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

**II.**

“She’s… she’s lovely, Mike.”

The baby girl in John’s lap makes a few quiet sounds and grabs his thumb. A lump in his throat makes it impossible for him to swallow. He hadn’t known that Mike and his wife were expecting, but he’d agreed to come meet their new daughter when Mike asked, and now he can’t think of an excuse to leave.

“Lovely but fussy,” Mike says, grinning. “This is the first time she’s been happy since we brought her home. You should have come around earlier.”

John lets out a breathy, empty chuckle. He’s glad that Mike is completely oblivious.

“We’re exhausted,” Mike continues. “Hardly slept for a month. She’s colicky and since I’m at the hospital during the day, I have to take care of her nights.” John lets him talk and gently bounces Mike’s daughter. She makes tiny cooing noises that hurt John’s heart. “Full days with a class of whiny med students and full nights with a crying baby.”

“Dreadful,” John mutters.

“Worth it, though,” Mike says, beaming down at her. John smiles weakly. His phone rings in his pocket and he sighs with something like relief, gently handing over the baby girl to her father.

“I’ll be back,” he says, standing and stepping into the hall. It’s Sherlock. He answers, “You okay?”

“ _Tell him we have a case_ ,” Sherlock replies.

“What, do we?”

“ _No. Come home; you aren’t helping yourself by being there_.”

John swallows thickly and stares at the carpet. “Okay,” he mumbles, nodding to himself. The line clicks off and John shuts his eyes, still holding the phone to his ear.

“Mike,” he calls, stepping back into the sitting room. He pockets his mobile and chews at the inside of his lip. “Something’s come up.”

 

-

 

They hug for the first time since the wedding. He can hardly believe they didn’t before - he can hardly believe Sherlock wasn’t there at the hospital with him, comforting him, standing by his side. His best friend. His fingers dig into Sherlock’s back and he fights the urge to bury his face in Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

Sherlock sags against him and his hands curl in the small of John’s back. It feels good. Safe.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

“I don’t understand why this is necessary.”

“Because, you didn’t have one last year - and that’s my fault, I’ll concede to that much, but you need a physical, Sherlock Holmes, and I am even more stubborn than you are.”

Sherlock huffs and crosses his arms. “The data will be skewed. How are you supposed to tell whether I’m in better or worse health if you didn’t measure that much last year?”

“I’m a doctor, I’ll be able to tell whether or not you’re going to end up in the hospital sometime soon.” John stares him down, hand clutching his bag. He will have his way, even if he has to strap Sherlock down and do the exam that way. He won’t, though. He can already see Sherlock’s resolve breaking.

“No.”

“ _Yes_.”

They continue glaring at each other.

“What’s in it for me?” Sherlock asks.

“A certificate of good health!” John scoffs, giving Sherlock a disbelieving look. “Seriously? Seriously.”

Sherlock’s expression doesn’t change.

“You know what? Fine, you arse," John concedes. "I’ll... take you out for dinner if you just let me do it, does that sound good?”

Sherlock considers. “Can I choose the restaurant?” he asks, one brow raised.

“If you’ll eat the damn food you order,” John says, now crossing his arms to match Sherlock’s stance.

There’s a pause.

“Fine. Do your ridiculous physical,” Sherlock surrenders. He sits at the kitchen table and slips off his jacket, tossing it over the back of another chair. “I’m of perfect health and this will be no use to you.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” John mutters, rolling his eyes as he sets his bag on the table and starts rifling through it. “Roll up your sleeve.”

He wraps Sherlock’s arm with a blood pressure cuff and they both go silent, John watching the dial, Sherlock watching John.

“Your systolic pressure is good but your diastolic is looking a bit low,” John mumbles, half to Sherlock and half to himself.

“Is that bad?” Sherlock asks, glancing at the cuff.

“Not exceptionally. Could just be dehydration or a lack of proper nutrients. We could probably stand to eat a bit better,” he adds with a smile. “Pulse next.” He removes the cuff and goes to reach for Sherlock’s wrist, then pauses, hand reaching out but not moving.

Sherlock furrows his brow. “John?”

John works his jaw, then pulls his hand back, trying to push away the memory of the last time he reached for Sherlock’s pulse. “Sorry. Sorry, I - I’ll do your, ah, carotid pulse. Better results.” His left fist clenches and he doesn’t mention the recurring nightmares, sometimes about Mary, but more recently about Sherlock. John stares at his watch and avoids Sherlock's concerned gaze.

“Bit low,” he comments, voice thankfully free of any waver.

“Why is it low?” Sherlock asks, craning his neck to look at John’s watch.

“Could mean your heart is stressed,” John explains, pushing down on Sherlock’s shoulder to keep him in his seat. “Nothing to worry about right now. You’d probably help yourself by quitting.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “Quitting.”

“Smoking,” John replies. “We both know you haven’t.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I found a pack in your violin case, Sherlock,” John huffs.

“Why were you in my violin case?” Sherlock asks, affronted.

“Because I thought you were smoking!” He glares at Sherlock. “Clearly, I was right. It’s no wonder you were so reluctant to let me do a physical.”

“Well, I was very careful to keep it from you; I figured that there’d be no harm in avoiding an outburst for awhile longer.”

“You take shifts,” John nearly laughs. “Took me ages to notice it, but every two hours you go off to the loo and every other time you’re _actually_ in your room smoking out the window like a guilty teenager. You've been absolutely reeking of it, lately. I can't believe you're back to doing this.”

Sherlock blushes but doesn’t break eye contact. “Sometimes I’m surprised that you don’t.”

“What, hide a disgusting habit from my best friend so that he won’t help me quit it?” John asks.

“You already did that,” Sherlock says, deadpan.

John clenches his jaw. “We’re done,” he says, putting away his stethoscope. “Good news, you’re in bloody perfect health. Your heart might fail, but we’ll tackle that problem when it comes.”

“John - “

“No - no, Sherlock. You helped me, alright? I’ll shout it from the fucking roof if you want. You helped me, and I’m grateful, but I’m _still_ not bloody okay.” John breathes hard and fights back the tears he can feel pricking the corners of his eyes. “I’m not okay. I’m not okay.” He shakes his head and shuts his eyes tight. “I don’t know how to be okay.”

He feels Sherlock’s arms wrap around him and pull him close. “Let me help.”

John swallows a pathetic noise and presses his ear to Sherlock’s chest. The beating is quick but it’s there and Sherlock is alive. He’s alive, and he’s helping, and John is not alone.

 

-

Sherlock nearly manages to convince him to go back to therapy, but John finds his ground rather quickly. He told Ella that he was entirely over Sherlock’s death when he moved in with Mary. He’s not going to return four years later, not only with the same problems, but with the added tragedy of his wife and child both dying.

“She probably thinks I’m crazy, or some kind of… disaster magnet,” he says over breakfast. He half-heartedly mixes his porridge. “I got shot in Afghanistan, and then that got infected, and then I came back here and met you, and with you came a psychopath and far too many bombs for my liking.”

“Wait, am I one of the disasters?” Sherlock asks.

“Not at first, no. You just brought quite a few with you. And then you faked your death - that’s when you became one of the disasters.”

“I was doing it for your safety.”

“Still tragic,” John says, drinking his tea. “Mm, and then you came back.”

“Which is good,” Sherlock says, though it sounds more like a question.

“You came back and I ended up in a fiery death pit.” Sherlock snorts quietly and John throws a nearby pen at him. “And then my wife killed you, and you died _again_.”

“That one wasn’t my fault,” Sherlock points out.

John shakes his head and chuckles a bit. “And then my wife, also a psychopath, who was pregnant with some other guy’s kid, died. And the kid died.” His shoulders slump slightly. “So, since you and Mary have both died, I guess next it’s my turn.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sherlock says, dismissing the idea with a roll of his eyes. “Clearly, Geoff will be the one to go next.”

“Greg,” John corrects. “And you’ve called him that one before.”

“I’ve used that one?” Sherlock frowns. “I’m losing my touch.”

“How about Gabe?” John suggests. He smiles. “Or… Garfield.”

Sherlock chokes on his tea and John’s smile spreads into a grin.

 

* * *

 

**IV.**

An overly loud, screeching noise jolts John from a nightmare and he sits up immediately, chest heaving. His wide eyes water in the cold air and he glances around frantically before he recognises Sherlock’s violin playing downstairs. He slumps back down, hand coming up to rub his eyes. The melody is back to something soft, gently wavering up and down in volume. John’s racing heart starts to calm and he shakes his head minutely. Just stupid, fucking nightmares.

He rolls over to face the wall and pulls the duvet up over his shoulder. The soft music helps him start to drift off.

Until there’s another loud, out-of-place screech and John jumps and accidentally kicks the wall.

“Oi, I’m up!” he shouts toward the door. The music stops altogether and there are footsteps on the stairs a moment later. John sighs and reaches over to turn on the lamp on his bedside table.

The door creaks open a bit and Sherlock steps halfway in. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“It’s fine,” John sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t tell whether or not it had woken you up. The first one didn’t seem to do the trick, nor did the second one.”

“Can’t believe I slept through one of those.”

“Well, it sounded like a bad one,” Sherlock says, eyes pitying.

John averts his gaze, but nods toward the foot of his bed to let Sherlock know he’s welcome to come in. “Yeah, it was,” he says, pursing his lips.

Sherlock hesitantly walks in and sits at the end of the bed. “Why were you awake to hear it, anyway?” John asks.

“You aren’t the only one who’s ever had a nightmare,” Sherlock jokes, though it’s without any humour. His hands fold in his lap and John stares at them. The right hand balls into a fist, then unwraps, and his left rubs it absently.

“You know what mine are about. You’ve never told me about yours. You can, you know,” he says gently, looking up at Sherlock’s face.

The lamplight throws shadows over Sherlock’s sharp features. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, then releases it. “Torture,” he mutters. “And solitude. More the latter than the former. When I was gone I was alone. Two years alone.”

John’s heart aches at the idea. He had people, though he tried to avoid them for some time. The idea of Sherlock on his own is just… awful.

“And… Magnussen,” Sherlock adds, voice trembling in slight. John’s brows furrow. “In the hospital, he visited. It’s mostly a blur, there was… a lot of morphine. But he visited, and… touched me.” He spits out the last two words, upper lip drawn back in disgust. “Kissed my hand.”

John glances back to where Sherlock’s hands are wringing in his lap. He’s noticed the motion more than once in the past few months, but never questioned it. His heart pounds with anger. Sherlock’s eyes shut tightly. “It’s ridiculous.”

“I should have killed him,” John whispers. Sherlock opens his eyes and looks at John with his watery gaze. “I should have shot him dead instead of letting Mycroft arrest him.”

“John,” Sherlock murmurs.

“No, I should have,” John says. “You told me how horrible he was. I never even noticed how much it affected you.” He sighs. “I’m so sorry, Sherlock.”

Sherlock pretends to scoff. “I don’t get scared, John,” he says with a smile.

John mirrors the expression. “Of course you don’t,” he replies.

There’s a pause. “May I stay?” Sherlock asks. He cautiously meets John’s eye. “Here, with you.”

John’s resolve melts before he even has a chance to build it up. “You’d better not kick me in your sleep. Go turn off the lights downstairs and then get in here.”

Sherlock gives him a fond look and rises from the bed, striding to the door. John shifts toward the wall, making sure Sherlock will have plenty of room in the bed. He chews his lip, wondering if he should ask Sherlock to sleep nearest the wall. He’d have to climb over John to get to it, but - if need be - John would be able to make an escape without disturbing him.

He hears Sherlock climbing the stairs and again and shakes his head. He’ll just hope for the best.

Sherlock shuts the door behind him and climbs into John’s bed without hesitation, turning off the lamp and hunkering down immediately.

John smiles fondly. “Comfortable?”

“Your bed is too firm,” Sherlock tells him without missing a beat.

John snorts a bit. “You _would_ need a bed of feathers to sleep,” he mumbles, pulling the covers up. Sherlock kicks him and John laughs, kicking back somewhat more gently. “Go to sleep.”

“Fine,” Sherlock sighs. John can see Sherlock smiling faintly in the dark before he shifts around and turns over to face the door. Humming contentedly, John turns to the wall and settles down into the warmth of the bed.

 

-

 

A firm hand shakes John awake gently and he gazes around blearily, looking for the source.

“Nearly eleven,” Sherlock murmurs. “I figured you’d want to be woken up.”

John blinks up at him, confused. “I slept in?”

“I called the clinic and told them that you had a hard night. They said they had a few locum physicians in the queue and it was fine.” Sherlock shrugs and smiles. He’s still holding on to John’s shoulder, though it feels like more of a caress. John slowly sits up and back on his elbows, careful not to disturb the hand.

“I - that’s really unprofessional,” he chuckles, sniffling a bit through morning congestion.

“I think they’re used to it,” Sherlock says.

John nods. He wants to pull Sherlock back into bed and fall asleep again. He hasn’t slept that soundly in months. “What time did you get up?” he asks.

“About ten,” Sherlock answers. “You were still out so I left you, but you always get tetchy when you sleep past eleven thirty.”

John smiles. “I forgot what it was like to sleep with someone next to me. It’s nice.”

Sherlock’s smile falters momentarily and his hand falls away. “It was,” he agrees, nodding brusquely and standing up straight.

“You okay?” John asks, brows drawing together.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock replies shortly. “I was getting ready to put on the kettle, do you want tea?” John nods and rises to a sitting position. “Right. Well. Good morning.” He watches as Sherlock turns and flees from the room.

 _Well, there’s his good mood spoiled, then_ , John thinks. He sighs and gets up to shower and dress, wondering what on earth he did this time.

 

-

 

“Alright, what is it?” John asks sternly.

Sherlock looks up from the newspaper apathetically. “What is what?”

“What is it that made you all pouty?”

“I’m not pouting,” Sherlock mutters, looking back down and flipping a page.

“I’ve known you for five years, I know when you’re pouting.”

Sherlock scoffs. “I wasn’t even present for two of those years, how do they count?” John glares at him and he sighs. “There’s nothing the matter, John, drop it.”

“You made me talk to you,” John notes. He grabs a chair from the desk and sets it in front of Sherlock’s armchair, sits, and leans forward, forearms on his knees. “You helped me. I want to help you. Tell me what I did to make you upset.”

Sherlock purses his lips. “It’s stupid,” he mumbles.

“It isn’t,” John says immediately. “Whatever it is, it isn’t.”

Sherlock’s mouth opens and shuts again. His adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. “I… felt like a replacement,” he admits hoarsely. “I feel like a placeholder for affection until you find someone new to go off and marry and - ”

“You aren’t,” John interrupts. Sherlock looks at him sadly and John’s heart aches. His gaze falls to the floor and he licks his lips. “She was the replacement.”

“For whom?” Sherlock asks softly.

“You know who.” John lifts his eyes from the rug and meets Sherlock’s stare. “I don’t… know who to be. Without you,” he clarifies. Tears threaten to make his eyes glisten, so he blinks rapidly a few times. In his peripherals he can see Sherlock wringing his hands.

“Nor do I, without you,” Sherlock confesses. John gives him a watery smile and Sherlock halfheartedly matches it. He glances at John’s lips, or John thinks he does; the mere idea of it makes his heart pound and worry crowds his throat.

“Well,” he whispers, sniffling a bit. He reaches out and pats Sherlock’s knee. “That’s that, then. No more pouting.” He nods encouragingly and ignores the empty ache in his chest as he stands and puts the chair back where it belongs.

When he turns back, Sherlock is staring off into space, left thumb absently brushing the back of his right hand. John nods to himself, sucking his teeth a bit. That’s that, then.

 

-

 

Standing off to the edge of the room, John admirably watches Sherlock prod a dead woman’s stomach. Lestrade walks up to him.

“How have you been?” he asks.

John looks up from the scene and smiles. “Better,” he divulges. He looks back at Sherlock, now running gloved fingers through her hair. He really, sincerely is.

 

-

 

“John, can you mix a teaspoon of sugar with two teaspoons warm water for me?”

John pauses in the middle of making his lunch and walks to the kitchen doorway. “Why?” he asks.

“A honey bee landed on the windowsill. Must have got caught in the rain earlier.” He nods at his hands, which John now sees are cupped gently and must be holding the bee.

“Jesus, Sherlock, you’re allergic,” John sputters, walking over quickly.

“Well, don’t startle it, then,” Sherlock says calmly. “Go mix a teaspoon sugar with two teaspoons warm water.”

John watches him with concern, and when Sherlock doesn’t waver, he sighs and turns back toward the kitchen. He mixes the requested solution quickly.

“Bring a clean pipette from the cupboard,” Sherlock calls.

“Is anything in this kitchen clean?” John mutters to himself. He searches the cabinets until he finds a jar full of pipettes, then grabs one and brings it and the sugar water to Sherlock.

“Thank you,” Sherlock says. He nudges the bee off his hand and onto the desk, then takes the cup and pipette from John, who watches raptly. Sherlock fills the pipette and squeezes a few drops of sugar water in front of the bee. It wriggles forward and, to John’s amazement, starts drinking the water.

“How did you know to do that?” he asks, now watching Sherlock, who is smiling down at the bee.

“I like bees,” Sherlock answers simply.

John chuckles. “You would like the one thing you’re deathly allergic to.”

Sherlock smiles but ignores him, still watching the bee. When it seems to be finished with the sugar water, now crawling around curiously, he takes a sheet of paper and lets it climb on, then holds it out the window. The bee gets the idea and flies off.

“There,” he says, shutting the window. He turns and smiles at John. “No harm done.”

A warmth settles in John’s stomach. “You never cease to amaze me,” he says fondly. Sherlock’s cheeks go a bit pink and John grins.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _This isn't happening_ , John thinks euphorically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so very much to [theparadoxisworking](http://theparadoxisworking.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this chapter!

**I.**

When summer comes, John tries to spend as much time outside of the flat as Sherlock tries to spend inside. Whenever there’s even a hint of sun he all but runs out, while Sherlock recedes into the alleged darkness of his room and comes out once night falls.

It’s alright; John understands. The git is so bloody fair-skinned that he burns to a crisp even in summer overcast, but the warm weather makes John feel more alive than he’s felt in almost a year. It heats his skin and throws sun over his face and helps him flourish. It knocks back the depression, pushes away the urge to drown himself in whiskey.  

Sherlock doesn’t even seem to mind the weather so long as John comes back grinning. The sight makes Sherlock smile, even as he points the electric fan at his face.

 

-

 

John looks over Sherlock’s shoulder, squinting at the bowl in front of him on the kitchen table. “What are you doing?”

“Watching ice cubes melt,” Sherlock says sadly. “Timing it, too.”

John snorts and moves away, going to the fridge for some juice. “You need a case.”

“I _know_ ,” Sherlock whines.

“Lestrade hasn’t called?”

“Not since we closed the case of serial murders of serial murderers.” He sighs wistfully. “That was a good one.”

“That was almost a month ago,” John points out. “You need to move on.”

“I can’t, it was a beautiful case,” Sherlock grouses. When John laughs, he repeats, “it _was_.”

“Glad to know you think some things are beautiful,” John says, smiling. He looks over his shoulder to the table, where Sherlock is slumped, but now his back has gone tense. _Shite_ , he thinks. “Sherlock,” he starts, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - ”

“I think many things are beautiful,” Sherlock interrupts swiftly, “and just because I don’t find women sexually attractive does not mean that I’m inhuman.”

“Sherlock,” John repeats, “I didn’t - ” The comment registers in John’s mind after a moment and he blinks. “Wait you - you don’t?”

“Of course not, I thought that was obvious,” Sherlock mutters. John walks over to the table and sits across from him.

“You had a girlfriend,” John says. “I don’t understand.”

“Did you forget the part where I pretended to propose to get into her boss’s office? I wasn’t exactly invested in the relationship.” He doesn’t look up from the bowl of slowly melting ice cubes.

“So… no women, at all?”

“Not my area,” Sherlock reminds him.

“You never clarified,” John says softly.

“You never asked,” Sherlock retorts.

“I - I just assumed - ”

“And I’ve told you countless times never to jump to conclusions,” Sherlock says, “so that fault is your own.”

"Do you, um," John starts, "do you - anyone?"

"Eloquent," Sherlock scoffs. "Yes."

"Right," John says, heart jumping in his chest. _Christ. Shit, shit, Christ._

"Nevermind it. It's never been an issue before and it won't be one now."

“Of course not,” John agrees. _It won’t be a problem so long as I completely ignore the possibility_. He tilts his head to try and catch Sherlock’s eye, attempting to focus on comforting his friend and disregarding his suddenly extremely active libido. “Sherlock, I considered you my friend back when you said you were married to your work, and you’ll still be my best friend no matter who interests you.”

He doesn’t meet John’s gaze, so John sighs and leans over the table to put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You are the most important person in my life, and that will never change,” he says firmly.

Sherlock finally looks up at him, and John thinks (or hopes, rather) that there’s some kind of desire in his gaze. Sherlock drops his gaze again to the tabletop and nods. “Okay,” he whispers. John squeezes his shoulder and pulls his hand back. “Watching ice cubes melt is incredibly boring,” Sherlock says, shyly looking up at John. 

The anxiousness and innocence of his gaze sends John’s heart running a marathon. “You need a case,” John says again, smiling. He can feel blood warming his cheeks and does his best to ignore it.

John insists on a night in on the sofa and they order in and put on Star Trek. They sit close, despite the heat, and Sherlock yammers away about the terrible quality of 1960’s television. He complains about John having compared him to Mr. Spock in the past. He complains about John making him sit down and watch this awful telly programme, despite the fact that he willingly sat himself on the couch and started watching without arguing once. He complains and complains and John smiles.

 

* * *

 

**II.**

John’s toes curl against the cool wood of his bedroom floor and he stares down at his hands. His wedding ring hadn’t felt right on his left hand after Mary died, and it doesn’t feel right on his other one now. It’s been a year, to the day. She’s gone. Their daughter is gone. His life, the normal life he thought he wanted, is gone.

He slowly works the ring off his right finger, then holds it in his palm. It’s dull. It hasn’t been cleaned in ages.

State of his marriage, right there. Sherlock’s words from ages and ages ago pop into his head and he closes his fist around the ring.

It wasn’t Mary he’d wanted to be with. He’d loved her; he truly had, for awhile, anyway. And that feeling had grown smaller and smaller until it was gone. He’d grieved a madwoman who’d cheated on him and shot his best friend. The most important person in his life, and she’d killed him.

She knew. She may have been his wife, but she knew the truth about him, and about Sherlock. He didn’t love her anymore, but he’d done his part, and he’d grieved, and he’d felt loss because there was one.

And now, he’s done.

He pulls open the top drawer in his bedside table and drops the ring inside, then shuts it.

He’s done.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

“You’ve taken off your ring,” Sherlock notes over breakfast. John hums in recognition, sipping his tea. “You’re… moving on?”

“Yep,” John says, turning the newspaper’s page.

“Right,” Sherlock says. His voice is quiet.

“You’re not a placeholder,” John reminds him, glancing up.

“I know,” Sherlock sniffs. He gets up and puts his dishes in the sink.

“Of course you know,” John mumbles.

 

-

 

“Why was Major Sholto important?”

John’s hands freeze over his keyboard. “What?”

“You wouldn’t have invited him to the wedding if he wasn’t important,” Sherlock notes. “You had other commanding officers; surely they would have been invited, too, if you merely wanted figures from your past there.”

“My other commanding officers weren’t discharged like James and I.”

“You call him by his first name,” Sherlock notes. “You call him James.”

John grinds his teeth. “It’s not your business.”

“Did you love him?” Sherlock asks softly.

“I’m not doing this,” John says, shaking his head. He shuts his computer and puts it aside, then gets up and goes up the stairs to his room.

 

-

 

There’s a light rapping at his bedroom door about an hour later and John ignores it.

Sherlock lets himself in slowly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Sincerely.”

“What happened in the time before I met you is none of your concern,” John says robotically. He thought about what he’d say when Sherlock inevitably came to apologise, and this was the best he could manage. “You can ask me about anything you’d like, just… not him.”

“He was a smart man,” Sherlock says, “being with you while he had the chance.” He leaves the room. The next morning, it’s like the conversation never happened.

 

-

 

“Oi, have you taken your ring off?” Lestrade asks, leaning toward John and squinting at his hands through the dim light of the pub.

“Yeah, yeah,” John says, holding up his hands and wiggling his fingers. “S’been over a year now, you know?”

“I’m glad you’re doing better, mate.” Lestrade lifts his pint in a ‘ _cheers_ ’ gesture and drinks. “It wasn’t looking good, last year. Sherlock was worried out of his mind.”

“I know,” John sighs. “I feel bloody awful, doing that to him.”

“I know,” John sighs. “I feel bloody awful, doing that to him.”

“Not your fault,” Lestrade says with a shrug. “It’s hard when you lose someone you love. You were even worse off when he went and did that to you.”

“Greg,” John starts wearily, but Lestrade interrupts him.

“No, no, don’t you brush me off. I am tired of the both of you giving each other looks like kicked pups and then coming to me and complaining,” he says sternly, poking John’s chest. “You don’t know how to talk to each other but you sure as shit have no problems coming and blabbering away at me.”

“I’m trying to have a drink with you!” John protests.

“Yeah, and as soon as you had enough you’d start talking about him.”

“I do not talk about Sherlock when I’m drunk.”

“He’s _all_ you talk about when you’re drunk.”

“It’s not like I have some schoolgirl crush on him,” John huffs. “I can’t just go up to him and say, ‘Hey mate, I know I moved out and got married to someone else and was getting ready to settle down and raise a kid with her, but I’m in love with you.’” Admitting it out loud makes John’s cheeks flush red and he takes a long drink from his pint before continuing.“He doesn’t… Christ, I don’t know. I don’t know, Greg. If I tell him and it all goes wrong and I… have to leave and never talk to him again… I can’t lose him, too. Not again.”

Lestrade puts a hand on his back and pats him gently. “Go home before we get blind drunk. Just talk to him. Trust me, he’s capable of talking. I can’t count how many times he’s come to my office just as I was ready to go home and kept me for another hour.”

John hums disbelievingly. He twists his glass against the bar’s countertop. “Told me two weeks ago that he’s gay, would you believe that?”

“What, really?” Lestrade asks, agape.

“Well, not in those words,” John concedes, “but he told me he isn’t attracted to women at all.”

“God, mate, he gave you a chance and you didn’t take it!” Lestrade laments, grabbing John’s arm.

“That was _not_ him coming on to me,” John says, shoving Greg away. “He’s just… He’s more open. He’s... talkative. I don’t know - affectionate. He’s been taking care of me since Mary died.”

“Why d’you s’pose that is?” Lestrade asks, quirking a brow.

John stares into his glass absently. “I can’t lose him, too,” he says again, shaking his head.

 

-

 

When he gets home, Sherlock does an oral examination of John’s inebriation before letting him go to bed. It feels like being back in uni, being interrogated by the police on the side of the road, although he can’t recall constantly gazing down at a policeman’s lips. He misses a few of Sherlock’s questions and has to ask him to repeat himself and then promise that he isn’t plastered, he’s just not paying attention.

Sherlock must eventually decide _something_ , because he lets John go to bed. John doesn’t actually know what his intention was with the interview - what was he going to do, bring John to the Yard and shove him in a cell with Lestrade? Make the two pay their time for having a night out?

Either way, John ends up in bed, where he convinces himself that a tipsy, pining wank in the dark just isn’t worth it, and falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

**(Eight Years Ago.)**

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” John protests, throwing down a folder. “I’ve been following _orders_.”

“If you insist that you’re merely following orders from a superior then you should use a more respectful tone of voice,” Sholto throws back.

They stare each other down on either side of the room. John straightens up and marches out, ignoring the pangs in his chest.

He never should have gotten himself into this. He knew something like this would happen.

* * *

 

**IV.**

He starts to do what he always does when he’s scared of his emotions.

He withdraws. When Sherlock sits close to him on the couch, he shifts away. When Sherlock tries to comfort him after a nightmare, John turns him down.

At first, Sherlock doesn’t seem to react to it - after all, John’s been wishy-washy for awhile now. But it goes on for a week, and then two, and before John can turn back, there’s a ravine a foot wide but fifty feet deep between them, and Sherlock stops trying to climb to the top.

John wants to hit his head against the wall when he realises he’s living the life he lived four years ago and he’s hopelessly pining over his flatmate, yet again.

 

-

 

John puts a hand on Sherlock’s back when he passes him to get to the fridge. Sherlock tenses, and John pulls his hand away.

 

-

 

“Anything new?” John asks. Sherlock looks up from his computer, then back to it, as though John didn’t say anything.

 

-

 

“This isn’t what I want.”

John pauses in the act of toeing off his shoes, leaning against the door jamb. Sherlock has hardly even acknowledged him for the past week, though John is the first to admit that he deserves it. He didn’t think Sherlock had noticed that he’d even come home from work. He looks and sees Sherlock, sat on the sofa, arms hugging his knees to his chest.

“What?” John asks.

“This isn’t what I want,” Sherlock repeats softly. He doesn’t look at John, eyes focussed firmly on the fireplace. “This. Skirting around each other. I’m not doing this again.”

“I don’t understand,” John says, though his voice is choked from sudden panic. _Do what again? Be friends? Coworkers? Live together?_

“You said I’d be your best friend no matter what,” Sherlock continues, “but that isn’t what I want.”

John’s heart pounds in his chest. _I’m going to be kicked out. I’m going to lose him. I tried and tried and I’m losing him anyway_. “You don’t,” he says, his voice a flat whisper.

“I’ve been doing this for years.” Sherlock’s eyes squeeze shut. “Years and years.”

“I didn’t know being my friend was such a burden,” John mutters.

“It _is_ ,” Sherlock snaps. He sighs. “I can’t do it, John.”

John swallows thickly. “Right,” he murmurs. He straightens up, rolling his shoulders back. “Right. Well, what do you suggest - ”

“I don’t want to be your best friend,” Sherlock interrupts. He steamrolls over John like this is a rehearsed diatribe. “I don’t. I want - more. I want more than this. I can’t do this anymore, I can’t be around you and listen to you talk about how much I matter to you without it being what I want, and - and I can’t have movie nights, or sleep in the same bed as you - ”

A light comes to John's eyes. “Sherlock,” he whispers.

“ - and watch you go off and live with other people, and marry other people, and _be_ with other people, I can’t watch you be happy having a life with other people because  _I_ want that life with you,” Sherlock chokes out. 

“I have waited, and waited, and cared, and killed, and thrown my life away repeatedly, because it meant saving yours, because I am _nothing_ without you. I was this close - ” he holds up a hand, forefinger and thumb millimetres apart, “ - to shooting Magnussen in the head rather than letting Mycroft take him away, because he touched you in the same filthy, condescending way he touched me.”

_This isn’t happening_ , John thinks euphorically. “Sherlock,” he repeats, more firmly.

“I’m not finished!” Sherlock snaps. He looks at John, eyes watery and red-rimmed.

“I don’t understand what we’re doing. We’ve been doing it for years and I still don’t understand. I don’t know what it is you want from me, because people tell us - they tell us constantly that this - ” he gestures between them somewhat frantically, “this isn’t normal. And I can’t figure out what it is because I don’t understand signals, or perhaps just _you_ , but you’re… warm towards me.”

“Of course I am,” John says softly.

“ _Why_?” Sherlock demands.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re rambling on like a panicky kid trying to explain to his mum how he got suspended from school?"

“Could you have picked a worse possible analogy?” Sherlock asks desperately.

“Yes,” John says, then takes a deep breath. “Are you going to tell me why you sound like you’re trying to avoid making a straightforward confession about your feelings?”

Sherlock stares at him with panicked eyes. “Because I’m afraid,” he says softly.

“You don’t get scared,” John whispers.

“I am afraid,” Sherlock repeats, “because I don’t want things to change.”

“You do want things to change.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“Why would I leave?”

“Because I’m not interested in men, I’m interested in you,” Sherlock whispers. “You, always you.”

John exhales shakily and feels his eyes well up. He walks over to the sofa and sits beside Sherlock. “Christ,” he whispers happily. He looks at Sherlock and gives him a disbelieving smile.

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s good, you idiot, it’s good,” John laughs. He sniffles and leans over, pressing a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock blinks at him in surprise, then lets his eyes fall shut and kisses John proper, his hand moving up to curl around the nape of John’s neck.

John pulls back in slight after a moment. “You never said anything,” he mumbles.

“You got _married_ ,” Sherlock says. “What was I supposed to do?”

“You said always,” John notes. “How long is always?”

“Always,” Sherlock replies simply. “From the beginning.”

“I wasn’t married in the beginning.”

“You also weren’t gay.”

“I’m not gay now.”

“But you were in a relationship with Major Sholto,” Sherlock points out. The mention of James makes discomfort twinge low in John’s stomach. “I didn’t even know who he was until you were getting married.”

“Let’s not talk about James right now,” John mutters, eyes locked on Sherlock’s lips

“Is he still important to you?” Sherlock asks, pulling away when John leans in.

“No, Sherlock. No. You - you’re important to me.”

Sherlock’s face lights up in a smile and he pulls John back in, kissing him with a happiness that John can feel down to his core.

  
  


-

 

Sherlock’s lips are plump and warm and soft and so, so hesitant.

 

-

 

When John says goodbye before he goes to work, Sherlock hesitantly walks over and kisses him, then wraps him in a hug.

John smiles the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

**V.**

For the first week, John kisses him as often as he can manage. It’s been a year and three months since he kissed anyone last, and he’d been waiting to kiss Sherlock long before that. They lie on the sofa together in the evening and John kisses him and kisses him, his forehead and his cheeks and his lips. Sherlock presses a small kiss to the tip of John's nose, which makes him wrinkle his nose, which makes Sherlock smile.

They watch a movie and Sherlock wraps himself around John from behind and complains about the see-through characters and poor story arc. John smiles and puts his hand on Sherlock’s on his chest.

_Thank you_. He thinks it over and over again. _Thank you, thank you, thank you._

 

-

 

“John - er, we - I know it’s been all of two weeks, but we haven’t really… talked, and I feel there are things we need to discuss.”

John blinks and looks up from his book and down to the other end of the sofa. Sherlock’s feet wriggle out of John’s lap and he scoots down, seating himself closer to John.

“That sounded formal,” John says. “Should I be worried?”

“I don’t believe so,” Sherlock replies.

“Okay,” John says. He marks his page and sets the book on the coffee table. “Because, you know, whenever you bring up talking about something you don’t actually want to talk about, you sound like you’re about to teach a lecture.”

Sherlock ponders that. “What kind of lecture?”

“Literature,” John says. Sherlock wrinkles his nose and John continues, “but that’s not the point. What’s up?”

Sherlock purses his lips. He reaches over and takes John’s hand in his, which seems to relax him a bit. “Two things,” he says decisively. “The first is, ah. Public affection.”

“Oh,” John says, a tad relieved. He’d expected something worse.

“Do you… mind it?”

“M - me, do I mind it?” John asks, surprised. “No. Why, do you?”

“No,” Sherlock says.

“So… yes to public affection?”

“I don’t see why not.” Sherlock says. John looks at him, eyes narrowed a bit. “What?” Sherlock asks.

“I didn’t expect that from you,” John admits.

“Well, I’ve been waiting five years to be with you, I’d like to show it off, a bit.” Sherlock shrugs and looks down at their joined hands, brushing his thumb over John’s.

A smile breaks out across John’s face. “Alright,” he says. “Alright, public affection is a go, if we ever leave the flat together again.”

“It hasn’t been that long.”

“The both of us haven’t gone somewhere together for months.”

“You still owe me dinner,” Sherlock points out. “You never took me to dinner after the physical you forced on me.”

“We can make a date,” John says, rolling his eyes at Sherlock’s melodramatic comment. “What was the second thing?”

Sherlock hesitates, lips parted in preparation. “Sleeping arrangements,” he says, quieter.

John stares at him. “Sleeping arrangements,” he repeats.

“I’d like to… that - that is, I think you should… sleep in my room,” Sherlock manages, cheeks pinkening.

“Oh.”

“If you’d like to, of course,” Sherlock continues hurriedly. “If not, I understand, of course, if it would be uncomfortable for you, I just figured - ”

“You really want me to?” John interrupts.

“Yes,” Sherlock replies immediately. He shyly looks at John. “Yes, I do. You let me stay in your bed awhile ago, and it was nice, and I want to sleep next to you, and there are too many stairs between the sitting room and your room.”

John’s cheeks warm and he smiles even wider. “You want to sleep next to me?” he asks sweetly.

Sherlock’s mouth curls up a bit. “Yes.”

John grins and leans in to kiss him. “Okay,” he says, leaning back. “Okay. I’ll move into your room.”

Sherlock positively beams. “Okay,” he echoes. “So, about that date?”

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Find a less robotic way of telling me that your work matters more than me. Be a human being.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, love to zabbu [jwlives](http://jwlives.tumblr.com/) for editing and leaving adorable notes all over my document and sending me cute cat snapchat video, you are a lifesaver

**I.**

They eat at a French bistro down the block and hold hands as they walk there. Sherlock explains that the only reason he chose this restaurant was so that John would have to try and pronounce menu items when ordering. John laughs and squeezes his hand and calls him a git.

They sit in a far corner, isolated, and John tries to read items off the menu and Sherlock corrects him.

“Poulet chasseur.”

“The ‘t’ is silent,” Sherlock corrects, candlelight dancing in his happily crinkled eyes. “Pou- _lay_. You had the second part right, though.”

John chuckles and moves down the list. “Oh, this will be a good one. Des cuisses - was that right? - des cuisses de grenouille.”

Sherlock laughs and says, “The l’s in 'grenouille' are supposed to make a sort of ‘y’ sound.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” John protests through Sherlock’s laughter. “What is it, anyway?”

“You don’t want it,” Sherlock says, smirking down at his menu. “It’s frog legs.”

“Jesus, how do you ask for pasta?” John snorts, shaking his head.

“I’ll do it,” Sherlock offers.

“I don’t trust you, you’ll order… snails, or something.” When Sherlock starts laughing again, John kicks him gently under the table; their eyes meet and they grin lovingly.

 

-

 

While Sherlock brushes his teeth, John gets into his pyjamas. Sherlock comes back and John goes to brush his teeth while Sherlock gets dressed for bed. They get ready for bed in tandem, and they have for three nights, now. John moved his toiletries from the upstairs bathroom to the one adjacent to Sherlock’s bedroom last night.

He pauses in the middle of brushing his teeth. It’s his bedroom, too, he supposes. He resumes brushing happily.

He hasn’t had time to move his clothing (of which there really isn’t too much) downstairs because of work, but he’ll do it tomorrow. He washes his face and pats it dry, thoughtlessly fixes his hair, then walks back into the bedroom.

Sherlock is already lounging on top of the covers, clad in thin pyjama bottoms and shirtless, busying himself with his mobile phone. John rakes his eyes over Sherlock and his gaze grows fond. He climbs into the left side of the bed and makes himself comfortable.

“You’re disturbing the covers,” Sherlock comments, eyes glued to his phone’s screen.

“Am I disturbing the covers or you?” John asks, setting his own phone aside and plugging it in to charge.

“I am highly undisturbed by your presence; the covers, however, have been jostled and folded and creased.”

“Well, tell the covers I apologise,” John says, humming happily and softly. He fluffs up his pillow and lies back, tilting his head to look at Sherlock. “You look just lovely when you’re only illuminated by the light of your mobile.”

“What lovely poetry.”

“Shut up.” John smirks. “What are you looking up?”

“Temperature trends. I’m wondering when the first cold front will come in.”

“It’s only August,” John laughs. “It’s going to be muggy for almost another month.”

“I refuse to accept that,” Sherlock huffs, turning off his phone. He draws his knees up and wriggles his toes under the sheets, kicking them up and sliding under. He pulls them up to his neck and turns over to face John. “You are a space heater.”

“Mm, sorry to say, but I’m just a person,” John teases. Sherlock huffs again and wiggles himself closer, gently settling his head on John’s shoulder. John’s heart pounds gleefully and his arm wraps around Sherlock. “Cuddly for someone who was complaining about the heat a moment ago.”

“You’re a nice pillow, I can’t help that much.” One of Sherlock’s arms lazily lounges over John’s middle. John shuts his eyes and sighs, content.

He sleeps straight through the night to his alarm the next morning, at which Sherlock groans loudly and buries his face in John’s chest.

“You need to quit your job,” he whines. “I’ll not have that alarm going off every morning.”

“Oh, yes you will,” John grunts, stretching his arms over his head. His toes curl against the mattress. Sherlock continues clinging to his torso. John tips his head down and kisses the top of Sherlock’s hair. “I need to go shower, Sherlock.”

“Hmmph.”

“Sherlock,” John warns.

Sherlock groans again and rolls over away from John, planting his face directly into a pillow.

“Bloody drama queen,” John mutters, smiling. He tosses his pillow at Sherlock’s head and goes to get ready for the day.

  
  


-

 

Sherlock shows up at the beginning of John’s lunch break and takes him out. There’s a deli across the street and they eat together; it makes John feel overwhelmingly cared for.

“I dunno,” John shrugs, “I suppose I just… Whenever I would imagine a relationship with you - ”

“You’ve imagined a relationship with me?” Sherlock interrupts cheerfully.

“More than once,” John admits. Sherlock smiles almost proudly. “Don’t interrupt,” John continues. “I never really expected you to be so… _doting_.”

“I wouldn’t use the word doting,” Sherlock says, nose wrinkling.

“Of course you wouldn’t; you like to pretend that you’re cold and uncaring and your heart is in a strongbox.”

“I do not.”

“You do, too,” John says, pointing an accusing finger. “You aren’t, though. You’re just a big softy.”

“How _dare_ you,” Sherlock intones, pretending to be insulted. John snorts into his food. “I’ve never felt so affronted in my life.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” John says, grinning. He looks at his watch and sighs. “I’ve got to get back.” He smiles sadly at Sherlock and stands, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.

“I’ve got it,” Sherlock says, putting up a hand to stop him.

John’s eyes wrinkle at the corners and he leans down to kiss Sherlock. “See?” he says. “Doting.”

“Go wipe runny noses,” Sherlock mutters, smirking at him. John smacks him on the arm gently and kisses him again before walking out of the deli.

 

* * *

 

**II.**

“There’s no outward connection,” Lestrade insists, handing Sherlock a stack of folders. “Practically everyone here has looked through them. The doctors who pronounced the deaths have all been cleared.”

“All the patients had different causes of death?” Sherlock asks, flipping through papers.

“Air embolisms, sudden cardiac deaths, asphyxiation. I think one of them died of a morphine overdose.”

“Shouldn’t these be handed over to a malpractise lawyer?” John interjects.

“The families of the patients are all insisting that these were intentional, not accidental.”

“Paranoid,” Sherlock mutters, squinting at a paper.

“I’d agree if there weren’t so many other patients dying in this hospital,” Lestrade says. “The death rate has gone up nearly eight percent in the last month.”

“Christ.” John takes one of the folders from the stack in Sherlock’s arms and starts looking through it.

“Have the nurses been interviewed?” Sherlock asks.

“Every single one of them,” Lestrade confirms.

“And the new foundation doctors?” John asks. Lestrade and Sherlock both look at him; the former with a look of confusion and the latter with a fond gaze. John blinks a few times. “Seriously?” he asks Lestrade. “It’s a teaching hospital. They got a new batch of them in July.”

“I - there were no foundation doctors on the death certificates.”

“Of course not, they’re barely doctors,” John scoffs. “They can’t pronounce death. Did you check the records of the consultants treating the patients?”

“Yes,” Lestrade says.

“Okay; did you find out what FY1’s were on their services on the days of these deaths?”

“Yes,” Lestrade says again, although less confidently. “Perhaps not as thoroughly as you’re suggesting.”

“By which you mean you didn’t actually speak to any of them,” Sherlock summarises, “the people in hospitals who are most likely to muddy up anything and everything they touch.”

“Isn’t he the medical expert in the room?” Lestrade huffs, pointing at John.

“When I was shot I was admitted to a teaching hospital,” Sherlock replies gruffly. “After I discharged myself - ”

“Fled the hospital,” John mutters.

“ - they re-admitted me, and they let a foundation doctor put in my IV. I’m quite sure there’s still bruising.”

“Melodramatic,” John snorts.

“Shush, you,” Sherlock says, looking over at him and smiling. John’s eyes twinkle a bit and Lestrade looks between them with a furrowed brow, quite clearly holding back a myriad of questions. “The point is that they don’t know how to do anything,” Sherlock finishes.

“The point is that FY1’s aren’t ever requested to do something _major_ ,” John rectifies. “So if one took it upon himself to attempt to do a consultant’s job, terrible things could happen, like air embolisms or morphine overdoses. They aren’t used to working long shifts and they get exhausted easily. Why any of them would try and do a senior officer’s job is beyond me, but I don’t believe that it’s never happened.”

“So, we’ll be interviewing the new kids, then,” Sherlock says, scooping up the rest of the patient files. “Bye.” He sweeps out of the room and John smiles curtly at Lestrade, then follows, jogging to catch up with him.

 

-

 

When they get to the hospital Sherlock brandishes a stolen police badge at the reception desk and asks for all foundation year one doctors to be rounded up and wait to be interviewed. They’re brought to an office and John makes himself comfortable while Sherlock paces behind him.

A nurse comes to the door to let them know that all the doctors have been fetched and Sherlock tells her to send in the most guilty-looking one. John corrects him and asks for the one closest to the door. A nervous, shaky, wiry sort of woman walks in.

“Hello,” John greets warmly. He gestures to a chair on the other side of the desk he’s seated at and she nods and sits.

“Has something happened?” she asks.

“Clearly,” Sherlock mutters behind them.

“We’re trying to figure that out,” John says, more amiably. “I’m Doctor Watson, and this is my...”

He pauses, brow furrowed and mouth open. “My - my, ah…” He spins the chair halfway around and looks at Sherlock, who also has a look of confusion on his face. John turns back to face the young doctor. “This - this is Sherlock Holmes,” he says, stuttering through it. “He’s a - detective. Yeah.” He clears his throat and quickly nabs a patient file off the desk. “So. Murder investigation.”

The young woman stares at him in horror.

 

-

 

“What was _that?”_ Sherlock blurts out when the door shuts behind the woman.

“I don’t know!” John hisses at him. “I just - I didn’t know what to call you!”

“My _name_ ,” Sherlock says, gesturing frustratedly.

“I mean label-wise,” John says exasperatedly. “We haven’t discussed it.”

“Why does it matter? A group of murder suspects needn’t know that we’re dating. Sort of.”

“Dating, sort of? Really?”

Sherlock pauses, working his jaw. “Maybe we need to have another discussion.”

“No kidding!”

“Um, excuse me?” a shy voice pipes up. Sherlock and John both turn to look toward the door, where a new foundation doctor is poking his head in.

John purses his lips tightly. “Come in,” he says, stiffly pointing at the empty chair.

 

-

 

“I just didn’t think about the need for labels,” Sherlock says, shrugging. “We’ve always just been us; I thought it would stay that way.

“Things become a bit different when you start a relationship with someone,” John insists. “It’s not for us, it’s for other people.”

“Like murder suspects,” Sherlock mutters.

“Like _friends_ ,” John corrects. “Friends who will eventually see us together, holding hands or… snogging, or something.”

“So, they’re going to walk in on us snogging, and then we have to explain ourselves? Why are they walking in without knocking? Why are they in our flat?”

“I never said we were in our flat, and that’s not the point,” John says. “The point is that people are going to talk and ask questions and I’d prefer we have a label for us before they do.”

“What do you suggest, then?” Sherlock asks. He holds a hand out when he sees a cab turn the corner toward them, and it starts pulling over immediately.

“I - I don’t know,” John admits. “Boyfriends?”

“We aren’t teenagers, John. It sounds absolutely juvenile when grown men say it.”

“Oh, what do you have, then?”

Sherlock pauses. “Significant others?”

“Bit formal, don’t you think?” John asks. They climb into the cab and he gives the address for Scotland Yard.

“I suppose,” Sherlock concedes. They sit in the back of the cab, working the cogs of their minds for something appropriate.

John looks over to him. “Partners?” he suggests.

Sherlock seems to mull it over. “This is my partner, John Watson,” he tries, gesturing to John.

“That sounds nice,” John says, smiling.

Sherlock mirrors his expression. “Partners, then.”

“Partners,” John agrees. “Did you figure out who it was?”

“Oh, easily,” Sherlock says. “The one whose lip twitched every time you told him the patients’ causes of death. It was plain as day. He’ll be losing his license immediately.”

“What a shame,” John deadpans. They start giggling and the cabby gives them a dirty look in the rearview mirror.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

When John’s nightmare inevitably comes again, Sherlock wakes him.

“It’s my fault,” John chokes out, shoving his face into Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock holds him close and tries to stop him shaking.

“It’s not your fault,” Sherlock promises. He presses his face to the top of John’s head.

John clings to him, shaking. Embarrassed. Ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he cries.

“It’s not your fault,” Sherlock repeats.

 

  
  


-

 

John’s hands pause in the middle of scrubbing his hair when he hears the bathroom door open and shut. A chilly breeze runs under the shower curtain.

“Sherlock?”

A sleepy grunt comes from the other side of the bathroom and the sink turns on.

“Sherlock, I’m showering, you know,” he says, hands frozen in his hair.

“And I’m brushing my teeth,” Sherlock replies.

“You couldn’t have waited?”

“You’re not showering in the sink.”

“No, but I am using the loo right now.”

“We can both use it,” Sherlock says, and John hears him start brushing, so that must be the end of that. He blinks a few times and goes back to scrubbing his hair. It never occurred to him that Sherlock, man of no boundaries, would also be lacking in courtesy regarding more private matters. Still, it’s not as though he’s pulling back the shower curtain and having a conversation.

The sink shuts off and another draft comes through the shower before the door shuts again.

Right. John shakes his head and smiles a bit.

 

-

  
Mrs. Hudson finds them settled on the sofa together, Sherlock lounging across John’s lap, asleep, John stroking his hair absently while he watches telly. She smiles at the sight.

“I was just coming up to tell him that I’m out of the tea he likes for the morning,” she says softly, wrinkling her nose fondly. “I’ll have to go to the shops tomorrow.”

“You’re a saint,” John tells her. “I’ll let him know.”

She nods and goes to leave, then turns back to him.

“It isn’t too soon, after Mary?” she asks, tilting her head. The question, strangely, doesn't take John by surprise. Other than this, they've never been overtly _together_ around Mrs. Hudson, but she must be able to tell. She’s always known, really.

“No,” he answers simply. “No, it’s not. I need him. Always have.”

“He needs you, too,” Mrs. Hudson says, smiling. “He was a wreck after the wedding, honestly. I would have given anything for him to just be stroppy or bored but he was so quiet. Quiet, and lonely.”

“I’m doing my best to make up for it,” John promises, looking down at the man in his lap.

“I don’t think he ever blamed you,” she says. “I think he blamed himself. Have a good night, luv.”

She shuts the sitting room door behind her and John watches Sherlock sleep, a new stone of guilt rolling around in his stomach.

 

-

 

“Hey, Sherlock?”

Sherlock lifts his gaze from his computer. “Yes?”

John purses his lips and sits beside him at the desk. “I don’t know if I ever told you,” he says, reaching over and taking his hand, “but I don’t blame you.”

“What for?” Sherlock asks. He looks entirely bewildered.

“For disappearing,” John clarifies. The look on Sherlock’s face softens into guilt. “For faking your death. For saving my life. I don’t think I ever _actually_ forgave you. Or thanked you.”

“You needn’t thank me,” Sherlock murmurs. His hand twitches in John’s and John loosens his grip in case he wants to pull it away. He leaves his hand in John’s, though, and he stares at them, linked loosely.

“Yes, I do,” John says. “You saved my life.”

“You’ve done the same for me,” Sherlock dismisses.

“Not like that.” John scoots his chair closer and puts his free hand on Sherlock’s cheek, turning his face to meet eyes. “You were alone for two years. And when you came back, I only hurt you. And I am so, _so_ sorry for doing that to you.”

“You didn’t know,” Sherlock whispers.

“It’s no excuse,” John tells him. He smiles gently, thumb stroking Sherlock’s cheek. “So, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that I didn’t get my head out of my arse sooner and realise that this could have happened with far less grief.” Sherlock nods and John stretches to kiss his forehead. “We’ve both been bloody idiots, but I think I took the first place medal.”

“You said it, not me,” Sherlock teases lightly, finally smiling.

John chuckles. “Everything’s new, yeah?” he says. “We’re brand new. A bit battered from the trip here, but still new. So we need to just move past the journey and focus on where we are now.”

“Did you just use the postal system as an analogy for our relationship?”

“Yes,” John says proudly. “I think it’s perfect.”

“Of course you do,” Sherlock says. John leans in and kisses him and Sherlock brings a hand up to ghost over his cheek.

“Thank you,” John whispers, “so much.”

“For you, anything,” Sherlock replies.

 

* * *

 

**IV.**

They stand on the kerb, waiting for a taxi to come by, and John feels Sherlock shiver beside him.

“Cold?” he asks.

Sherlock hums in confirmation, then turns and gives John a surprised look. “I’m _cold_ ,” he says, grinning. “It’s _cold_.”

“It’s a chilly breeze. September is only just ending,” John reminds him, but he can’t help smiling as well.

“This is the best day of the entire year,” Sherlock says, sighing happily.

“Oh, really?” John asks,

“Second best,” Sherlock amends, winking at John.

“Better,” he concedes, nodding. Sherlock puts an arm around him and hails a cab as soon as it turns the corner. He holds the door open and ushers John in with a teasingly polite, “After you.”

“Oh, why thank you,” John laughs, climbing in.

“22 Northumberland Street,” Sherlock chimes toward the cabby. The cab pulls away from the kerb and Sherlock leans in to plant a sloppy kiss on John’s cheek, which makes John laugh even more and he turns his head to kiss Sherlock fully.

 

-

 

Angelo sends them home with a bottle of wine - on the house, in celebration of them finally recognising their relationship, according to him - and they lounge on the sofa together, taking turns filling each other’s glasses.

“Do you think we’ve had enough?” Sherlock asks, quirking a brow.

John shakes his head, swallowing the sip of wine he just took. “No, no, this is good,” he says. “Tipsy is good. We can manage another glass at least before we should stop.”

“Well, considering your track record.”

“This is good drunk,” John promises, smiling warmly. “I’m not drowning in my sorrows, I’m _happy_. Look how happy I am.”

“I can see how happy you are,” Sherlock chuckles. He leans in and kisses John, and John gently sucks his bottom lip. They smile when they part and Sherlock adds, “Though, I could do without the wine.” As if to prove his point, he sets his glass down and puts a hand on John’s waist.

“Red wine is disgusting,” John agrees, “but it’s alcohol. And it was a gift.”

“It was a set-up,” Sherlock snorts.

“We’re already set up,” John points out.

“He still likes to believe he has a part in it.” John giggles and Sherlock kisses his jaw, failing to hold back a little smirk.

“Has he always been like this with you?” John asks, gently tilting his head as invitation for Sherlock to keep paying his little ministrations.

“Mmhmm,” Sherlock hums. He nuzzles a soft spot below John’s ear that makes John shiver. “Since I met him. He’s been trying to put me up with somebody since I was twenty-six.”

“Never successful?” John asks. There’s a hint of hope to his tone.

“Never,” Sherlock agrees. “He has horrible intuition. This puts him at a single triumph.”

John hums happily and carefully leans over to set his glass down as well. “He must be very proud of himself,” he jokes.

“Oh, very,” Sherlock agrees sarcastically. They both smirk and John tips Sherlock’s head up by his chin and kisses him, wrapping arms around his neck. Sherlock’s arms twine around John’s middle and pull him closer, and he leans back and tugs John on top of him. They settle comfortably and snog, tongues brushing hesitantly, teeth grazing lips.

When it starts to grow more heated, John feels an anxious turn in his stomach and pulls away, breathing heavily. “Sorry,” he chokes out, not understanding where it came from. It made him feel like he was going to be sick. “Sorry, I - we should get ready for bed, it’s getting late.”

Sherlock’s eyes flicker over him a few time before he nods in agreement. “Yes, of course,” he says, sitting up. John climbs off of him and runs a hand through his hair. “Are you alright?” Sherlock asks, putting a hesitant hand on his back.

John nods and swallows hard. “I’m fine,” he says. “It’s all fine.”

 

* * *

 

**(Eight Years Ago.)**

“No, that isn’t what I’m saying,” Sholto asserts.

“It’s _exactly_ what you’re saying,” John hisses. Footfalls pass outside the room and they both turn their heads in anticipation. The door stays shut and John looks back to Sholto. “It’s exactly what you’re saying,” he snaps again.

“I’m simply suggesting that you should consider whether or not you’re willing to take the risks that come along with a relationship that’s practically illicit in this line of work - ”

“You’re overreacting.”

“I don’t overreact,” Sholto says.

“You constantly overreact,” John tells him, jabbing a finger at his chest. “I said once - once - that the potential of me being found in a more intimate situation with you was a threat to our jobs. You haven’t let it go.”

“I haven’t let it go because you were right,” Sholto says. John’s arm falls back to his side. “I am your superior officer and you were promoted to be my captain by my insistence, and rightfully so. Our relationship has not interfered with our jobs but that doesn’t mean someone won’t believe the opposite.”

“What you’re saying is that it’s going to look like I’m fucking you for a pay raise,” John says, crossing his arms.

“Vulgar phrasing doesn’t change the fact of the matter.”

“No, it just makes it easier to understand,” John spits. He squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head.

“I regret nothing,” Sholto says. John clenches his jaw. “Perhaps in other circumstances - ”

“Stop,” John whispers. “Just stop.”

“Watson,” Sholto starts. “John,” he amends. “I care for you.”

“You’re doing a right job of showing me the opposite.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” Sholto says.

“Work out your priorities, James,” John says. “Find a less robotic way of telling me that your work matters more than me. Be a human being.”

 

* * *

 

**V.**

“John!” Sherlock calls. John sighs and sets down the shirt he’d been in the middle of folding. “John!”

“I’m just in the next room, you don’t need to shout,” John calls back. He walks from their bedroom to the sitting room and looks over to the desk. “What?”

“Do you have time for a case this week?” Sherlock asks.

“Er, I could probably make time,” he says. “I’ve got Thursday off for sure, and I’m scheduled to get out early on Wednesday.”

“See if you can manage Friday as well,” Sherlock says.

“Have you got something interesting?” John walks over to the desk and looks over Sherlock’s shoulder, resting a hand on his back.

“Interesting enough to at least last through the weekend,” Sherlock says. “I figured you might want to come with.” He looks up at John, who just about beams.

“I’ll see if I can trade some shifts,” John tells him. “No promises. And if I do manage it, you aren’t allowed to complain about me working doubles for a week.”

“You get grumpy when you work doubles,” Sherlock explains.”I have every right to complain about it.”

“You’d be grumpy if you spent sixteen hours around a bunch of sick people,” John says. “No complaining. I get to complain. You get to make me happy again.”

“Challenge accepted,” Sherlock says. John smiles and kisses his cheek. “Alright, you can go back to the laundry.”

“Heaven forbid you fold your own underwear.”

“I do the socks,” Sherlock reminds him.

“The only reason you do the socks is because if I do the socks wrong, the sky falls,” John huffs. “I’m sure if there was a class on sock indexes you’d have me take it and then you wouldn’t have to do anything.”

“Indices,” Sherlock corrects.

“Indexes,” John says, “and I’ll say it that way until the day I die.”

Sherlock grunts and goes about answering his emails and John kisses his cheek again before getting back to work.

 

-

 

Sherlock kisses him insistently, crowding him against the foyer wall. John’s arms around his neck keep him close. One of Sherlock’s hands lies palm against the wall; the other hides in the small of John’s back, pressing him against Sherlock. John’s fingers tangle in the halo of Sherlock’s curly hair. They breathe heavily against each other, chests brushing.

“We,” John gasps, “should not have left without doing any paperwork.”

“They’re used to it,” Sherlock replies, grinning and kissing John again.

“You’re a bad man,” John says, then giggles against Sherlock’s lips. “Bad, bad man.”

“The worst,” Sherlock agrees. The hand not entangled in Sherlock’s hair comes around to grip his partner’s coat lapel, material clutched tight in his fist as he snogs Sherlock. He barely thinks for a moment about moving things upstairs before there’s a twist in his stomach and he turns his face away, swallowing hard.

Sherlock takes it the wrong way and tips his head down to press his lips to John’s neck, but John shakes his head, chest heaving. “Stop,” he manages. “Stop.” Sherlock pulls back immediately, eyes flickering over John’s face with concern.

“John?”

“I’m sorry,” John whispers. “Sorry. I just - can’t.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” he admits, shaking his head brusquely. “No.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Sherlock asks, letting his arms fall to his sides.

“No,” John says. “It’s me.”

“This sounds like the beginning of a break-up speech,” Sherlock says.

“It isn’t,” John promises, letting out a breathy laugh. He disentangles his hand from Sherlock’s hair and rests it on his neck. “I’m sorry, I just…” He trails off, then licks his lips. “My relationships haven’t had a fantastic track record for the last decade or so. I don’t - I don’t want us to make any mistakes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“James, he… Our work was more important than our relationship, to him,” John says, voice strained. “And Mary, she cheated on me. And died.”

“And was a freelance assassin,” Sherlock adds.

“No need to twist the knife, Sherlock,” John says, patting Sherlock’s chest.

“So,” Sherlock says, thinking aloud, “you think I’m going to decide that we’re better off as co-workers, or that I’ll cheat on you, or die.”

John opens his mouth to answer, then shuts it again. “Only the first part,” he admits, looking away. “Maybe the last part, but only because you have a history.”

There’s a pause and Sherlock stands up straight, though he looks at the ground. “I don’t know how to make the word ‘always’ any clearer,” he says. “It’s been five years. How do I put it in phrasing you’ll understand?”

“Sherlock, it’s not your fault,” John sighs, looking up at him, “it’s just this… ridiculous feeling I get.”

“Others who have had the chance to be with you ruined it for themselves,” Sherlock says. He gives John an imploring look. “I spent two years pretending to be a dead man because it meant saving your life. I didn’t happen to anticipate that you would hate me so strongly afterwards.”

“I never hated you,” John says desperately.

“I ruined it for myself, too,” Sherlock whispers.

“You didn’t,” John promises. He puts a hand on Sherlock’s cheek tenderly. “You haven’t ruined anything.”

“Please believe me,” Sherlock practically begs, “when I say that nothing could ever drive me to leave this, or you. This is everything I’ve wanted for years, and it’s better than I could have ever imagined, which is incredible, considering.”

John gives him a watery smile and nods, leaning up to kiss him. “Okay,” he whispers. Sherlock rests their foreheads together and pulls him close.

“Let’s go to bed,” Sherlock whispers, tugging John toward the stairs.

“Sherlock, ” John starts.

“To sleep,” Sherlock interrupts. “Let’s go to sleep.”

John smiles again and lets Sherlock lead him upstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s not go to bed yet,” John whispers, lips brushing Sherlock’s jaw.
> 
> “We’re already in bed.”
> 
> “Let’s not go to bed yet,” John repeats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is unfortunately un-beta-ed or edited by anyone but myself; apologies for any mistakes! hopefully the content will make up for it ; w ;

**I.**

John reads to the sound of Sherlock's slow, melodious violin. The songs are unfamiliar for awhile, until one catches John’s attention.

“Hang on,” he says, furrowing his brow and looking up from his book. “Is that - ?”

“Your wedding waltz, yes,” Sherlock says, still playing. “The original version.”

The confirmation makes John’s throat tighten. “Why?” he asks. Sherlock lowers the violin from his chin and settles it in his lap.

“Because the original version wasn’t for you and Mary,” Sherlock admits quietly.

John blinks a few times. “You wrote my wedding waltz for us?”

“I hadn’t intended to,” Sherlock admits, looking at John sheepishly, “but when I thought I should be writing something romantic, I… forgot that it was for you and Mary. So, when I finished, I just… remastered it, a bit.”

A smile grows on John’s face and he directs it towards Sherlock. “That’s almost ridiculously sweet, d’you know that?” he asks. “I mean, I should probably be upset that your wedding gift for me and my wife was a song actually about me and you, but it’s… sweet,” he repeats. “Bit not good, though. I wouldn’t suggest doing it for any of our other friends.”

“I’m not in love with anyone else,” Sherlock says, smirking, “and besides, we have no other friends.”

John stares, silent, while Sherlock tunes his violin absently. “You’re in love with me?” he asks softly. His cheeks turn pink.

A similar blush rises on Sherlock’s face and he smiles. “Of course I am.”

“When did you decide that?”

“I didn’t _decide_ ,” Sherlock says, “It’s just that when you care for someone as strongly as I have for you, for five years, you come to terms with the fact that you are in love with them, exactly as I have.”

“Oh, that’s not fair,” John says, grinning from ear to ear. “You’ve had time to come to terms already and I have to sit here blushing like a bumbling idiot.”

“I’ve only come to terms with the fact that I am in love,” Sherlock says. “No one said I was any less bumbling than you.”

John smiles softly, his eyes a bit watery. “I love you, too,” he whispers.

A look of sheer euphoria overcomes Sherlock and John can’t believe he waited so long to make Sherlock this happy.

 

-

 

Sherlock kisses his cheek before leaving Lestrade’s office to hail a cab. Lestrade raises a brow and John blushes, smiling proudly, and gives Lestrade their paperwork.

“Go on, then,” Lestrade says cheekily, nodding his head toward the door. “Oh, and - I told you so.”

“Not another word out of you,” John warns, positively beaming.

 

* * *

 

**II.**

Soft whimpers sound from the other side of the bed and John blinks his eyes open, blearily looking around the dark bedroom.

It's the middle of the night and he only has half a clue where he is before he realises that Sherlock, beside him, is clutching a pillow and shaking with the effort of trying to stay quiet.

"Sherlock?" he whispers, turning toward him. Sherlock lets out a quiet noise; his knuckles are white from pressure. "Sherlock," John repeats, slightly louder. He puts a gentle hand on Sherlock's shoulder and jostles him. "Sherlock," he intones. "Wake up, love."

He squeezes Sherlock’s shoulder gently and scoots closer, wrapping an arm around him. Sherlock clings to him, trembling.

“I’m right here,” John promises. Sherlock exhales sharply and buries his face in John’s chest. “You’re not alone. You’re not alone.”

 

-

 

The first crack of fireworks sends John’s heart off on a marathon and he jolts sharply in his seat, eyes wide and blurred. He hadn’t been expecting it and he can feel panic creeping up the nape of his neck, his shoulder and leg both throbbing. If he can just calm himself down, it’ll go away. His heart flutters in his throat and his chest heaves with breath; he shuts his eyes tightly.

Through the tinnitus he can hear Sherlock saying his name, but he can’t bring himself to respond. He shakes his head minutely, gripping a pen that he’s quite sure has probably broken in half and spilled over his fingers.

_It was just fireworks. It was just fireworks._

He thinks it like a mantra with every pound of his heart in his throat. He opens his eyes to look around at the sitting room. His sitting room, his home, in London.

He breathes in. He holds it. He exhales.

“I’m okay,” he tells Sherlock, who is kneeling not too far in front of him, saying his name every few seconds. “I’m fine.”

“It’s just fireworks. It’s Guy Fawkes Night," Sherlock says, visibly relieved at John finally responding.

“I forgot,” John says hoarsely. He looks down at his hands, one of which is covered in black ink. Sherlock moves closer and puts a hand on his knee.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m alright,” John promises. Sherlock leans up and pulls him into a hug. John holds his dirtied hand away but wraps his other arm around Sherlock tightly. “I hate this fucking holiday.”

“At least this year you haven’t been drugged or put in a bonfire,” Sherlock says softly. “Worse things have happened.”

John stifles a laugh and hides a smile in Sherlock’s shoulder. “Worse things have happened,” he agrees.

 

-

 

When they get in bed John pulls him close and kisses him reverently. Sherlock shivers against him.

“Let’s not go to bed yet,” John whispers, lips brushing Sherlock’s jaw.

“We’re already in bed.”

“Let’s not go to bed yet,” John repeats.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

The scars on Sherlock’s back make a crosshatch pattern and John can’t stop running the tips of his fingers over each dip and crest.

“John,” Sherlock breathes. His tone is choked and John leans over and kisses him, his forehead and his cheek and his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” John whispers. Sherlock turns onto his back beneath John, whose hand settles on Sherlock’s chest. The tight scar tissue of the bullet wound beneath his right breast protrudes against the heel of John’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”

Sherlock’s rests his hand over the exit wound on the back of John’s left shoulder and John kisses him, all consuming, his free hand reaching down to pull off Sherlock’s pyjama bottoms. Sherlock helps him, tugging the legs down with his toes and gently shaking off his underwear as well.

John kicks back the duvet when he gets Sherlock stripped entirely. It’s practically pitch black in the room - it’s the only way Sherlock can fall asleep - but his eyes have adjusted and he can make out his partner’s naked form against the bedsheets. He traces Sherlock’s sides and leans in to kiss him again. He can feel Sherlock trembling slightly against him.

“You okay?” John whispers against him.

“Probably,” Sherlock exhales shakily. “Yes.”

“You can tell me to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop. I want you out of your pyjamas, too.”

John smiles as he kisses Sherlock again; he takes his partner’s hand and leads it to the waistband of his pants, then reaches up to tangle his fingers in Sherlock’s hair. When Sherlock starts tugging down his pants, that anxious feeling turns in John’s stomach. He pulls away and hides his face in Sherlock’s neck.

“John?”

“Keep going,” John tells him.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.” He takes a stuttering breath and lifts his head to press their foreheads together. “I trust you. I trust you.”

"You’re sure?” Sherlock whispers.

“I’m sure,” John promises.

Sherlock hesitates a moment longer before kissing John and pushing his pants down the rest of the way. John lowers himself entirely on top of Sherlock and they both let out a soft sound and clutch the other closer. John rolls his hips and Sherlock mirrors him and the little moan in the back of his throat makes John shiver.

His fingers trail down Sherlock’s chest and stomach and curl below his navel, settling comfortably as they snog.

“Why are you waiting?” Sherlock gasps, breaking away. "Touch me."

“You’re impatient,” John laughs.

“Five _years_ ,” Sherlock reminds him. He nudges a leg between John’s, whose breath hitches at the feeling. “We can try foreplay next time.”

“I think this side of you might be my favourite,” John says, his grin masked by the dark. Sherlock hears the expression in his tone and starts laughing softly, which John joins with a breathy giggle. He tentatively wraps his fingers around Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock’s laughter cuts off with a sharp gasp and he shudders under John’s hands.

“ _John_ ,” he whimpers.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“You’ve only just started,” Sherlock whines. John presses his smiling lips to the underside of Sherlock’s jaw and strokes him gently. Sherlock's fingertips dig into the small of John’s bare back and John can’t wait to look over his shoulder in the mirror later to see the little bruises in a pattern over his arse.

 

-

 

Sherlock’s voice when he comes is the most beautiful, agonised tone in which John has _ever_ heard someone say his name. Sherlock mumbles soft things in French afterwards, none of which John bothers to try and understand. It sounds endearing, especially when Sherlock punctuates it with kisses brushed gently against the softest parts of John's skin.

“You shouldn’t have focussed on me,” Sherlock breathes. His fingers brush John’s sides.

“I always focus on you,” John pants. He shivers when Sherlock’s hands drift lower and he subtly shifts his hips upward.

“I suppose, then, that it’s my turn to… take things into hand,” Sherlock says, a grin slowly growing on his face.

“Oh, that was _awful_ ,” John groans. Sherlock chuckles softly and kisses John’s neck, practically curling himself around John as his hand wraps around John’s cock. “You’re - _ah_ \- cuddly, aren’t you?”

“I find that orgasm makes me feel… ardent,” Sherlock mumbles.

“Cuddly,” John repeats. Sherlock’s eyes narrow and he gives John a slow, long stroke that makes him choke back a moan. “God, that’s - keep doing that.”

Seemingly pleased, Sherlock continues, pressing hard kisses to John’s neck. He parts his lips to suck gently and John nearly whimpers. His eyes fall shut and he bites his lip as he rolls his hips. The calloused pads of Sherlock’s fingers feel downright incredible on his cock and the back of his neck. He arches his back and moans when Sherlock sucks harder at the junction of his neck and jaw.

“ _Christ_ ,” he gasps, bucking into Sherlock’s hand. He threads his fingers into Sherlock’s hair and covers his own eyes with his other hand.

“Good?” Sherlock whispers, lips brushing John’s neck as he speaks.

“Could be faster,” John admits breathily. Sherlock picks up the pace and he moans, trying to keep from writhing too much. He wants to consume Sherlock wholly, but settles for gripping his hair tighter. Sherlock groans softly and bites John’s neck, and John tips his head back with another moan.

He grasps Sherlock’s hair when he comes, mouth falling open, barely managing not to shout. His breath trembles and he holds Sherlock tightly, choking through his little inhalations.

Sherlock kisses him and steals his breath and he pants against Sherlock’s lips, arching into him. “Sherlock,” he breathes. “Sher.”

“John,” Sherlock mumbles, still kissing him.

“I can’t - I can't breathe,” John laughs, gently pushing Sherlock away, chest heaving. “I need a second.”

Sherlock smiles and kisses his jaw. "Sorry," he mumbles. John hugs him close, slowing his breathing.

“Good?” Sherlock asks. The sincerity on his face absolutely melts John's heart.

“ _Wonderful_ ,” he sighs.

 

* * *

 

**IV.**

“Sherlock,” John huffs, exasperated, “You made a right mess of me, look at this!” He rubs the purpling bruise on his neck and frowns into the mirror. “I have to go to work like this!”

“You didn’t have any complaints last night,” Sherlock points out, poking his head out of the shower. “Just wear a shirt with a high collar. There's concealer under the sink if you absolutely need it.”

" _Why_ do you have concealer?"

"Because  _someone_ refused to help me sneak into the Shadow Lounge, if you don't remember," Sherlock says. "In any case, the bruises aren't too terribly obvious. Wear one of those garish ties of yours to distract from them."

“I might as well wear your scarf,” John grumbles, turning on the faucet.

“Whatever makes you feel better,” Sherlock says, retreating into the steam of the shower, “but the scarf will be far more obvious.”

John pouts into the mirror, tilting his head and looking at the hickey in the light. A little twinge of delight turns in his stomach. It isn’t too bad. And thinking about how it got there is a bit thrilling. He hadn’t had sex in almost a year and a half before last night. Now he has, and with Sherlock Holmes, a walking wet-dream and unbelievably cuddly sap. The reminder is enough to start getting him worked up again.

“Are you just going to stand there looking in the mirror or are you _actually_ going to shave?”

“Oh, sod off,” John says. He grins in the mirror and wonders just how impolite it would be to call off work and spend the afternoon in bed. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They kiss at midnight on New Year’s and fall asleep on the couch, their half drunk glasses of scotch on the coffee table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god it's the end, i can't believe i finished this. thank you to everyone who helped me, specifically elizabeth [jwlives](http://jwlives.tumblr.com/) whom i love with all my heart and who is also a dick. and who helped me form this entire story, but like, whatever.

**I.**

The door clicks shut silently behind him and John wishes he’d been the one to close it so that he could have slammed it. Hard enough to splinter the wood. He leans over the back of his armchair, gripping the crest and breathing slowly through his nose.

He knows Sherlock is watching him from behind but he can’t bring himself to turn around. He feels furious. He feels ridiculous. He feels broken.

“I should have paid better attention,” Sherlock says. “It’s my fault.”

“You couldn’t have waited,” John whispers. “Just ten minutes. You knew I’d be getting off work and you just… couldn’t have waited.”

“There had been a sighting and I didn’t want to let him get away. It was ignorant of me.”

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“I know,” Sherlock says.

“I thought - ” John chokes out.

“You jumped to conclusions.”

“I can’t help it,” John whispers. He turns around, blinking away tears. “I can’t - you’re everything I have, now. You’re everything. I can’t lose you, Sherlock.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” Sherlock says, stepping forward.

“I thought I was going to lose you.” John swallows hard and shakes his head. “Lestrade said you’d left without waiting and that you had a lead on the murderer and - you didn’t answer, I called four times, I thought - ”

“John, you aren’t going to lose me.” Sherlock puts his hands on John’s shoulders and John steps forward, leaning into him. Sherlock hugs him snugly. “I won’t do that to you.”

“Again,” John whispers.

“Again,” Sherlock concedes. “I think once was enough.”

“Twice,” John says, sniffing softly. “The second one wasn’t your fault.”

“Twice was enough, then.”

“Please be more careful,” John begs. He hides his face in Sherlock’s shoulder. “Don’t run off without me. I know I sound ridiculous, or like some overprotective parent, and it won’t be forever, I just need to know - I need to be sure that you’re okay.” He can feel his cheeks burning red from embarrassment and presses his face even harder against Sherlock. “I need to know. I can’t lose you.” He pulls back in slight to look Sherlock in the eye. “You are everything I have,” he says again, eyes watering.

Sherlock’s eyes flicker over his face and he nods, then leans in to kiss John. “I’m sorry,” he says afterwards. “I’ll be more careful.”

“Okay,” John mumbles, settling his head back against Sherlock’s shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Sherlock echoes.

 

* * *

 

**(Four and a Half Years Ago.)**

John jolts at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder and snaps his head around. He relaxes, cheeks flushing, when he realises it’s Mary. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“You alright, love?” she asks, tilting her head. “You seemed a bit out of it. I said your name, you didn’t answer.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” John promises. He smiles listlessly and looks back out the cab window at Bart’s. _One year_ , he thinks. _An entire year, and it doesn’t hurt any less_.

 

* * *

 

**II.**

“John. _John_.”

John’s eyes fly open and his throat constricts suddenly. He breathes shakily through his nose, swallowing hard.

“Are you alright?” Sherlock whispers.

“Yeah,” John replies. “Thank you.”

Sherlock gently squeezes his shoulder. “I’d been waiting for it to start; I figured there might be one tonight, after what happened. I hope I didn’t let it go too far.”

“It was just starting.” John scoots closer and puts his head on Sherlock’s pillow. “You shouldn’t grab me in the middle of the night,” he says. “Especially not during a nightmare.”

“I can hold my own,” Sherlock promises. “The risk is worth it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” John mumbles.

“You’d never hurt me on purpose.”

“I don’t want to hurt you on accident.”

“I’d know it was an accident,” Sherlock says. “That’s what matters.”

“I think waking up to find out I was half-consciously choking you is slightly more horrifying than my nightmares.”

There’s a pause. “I didn’t think about that.”

“It’s okay,” John says. He leans in and kisses Sherlock’s forehead. “Thank you.”

 

-

 

“You’re - eager,” John gasps. Sherlock hums happily and kisses him again, pressing him back against the door. “I haven’t even got my coat off.”

“Unnecessary,” Sherlock breathes, sucking his bottom lip. John moans and drops his bag so he can put his hands on Sherlock’s hips. “Don’t get comfortable like that,” Sherlock adds.

“Why?” John asks. Sherlock pulls back and smirks, then drops to his knees. “Oh, my god,” John whines, tipping his head back euphorically.

  
  


-

 

John whistles while he cleans the dishes , which were piling so high that a plate had fallen out of the sink and shattered on the ground. He’d swept it up while humming Sinatra.

“You seem chipper,” Sherlock points out.

“We had Chinese for dinner,” John says.

“If I’d known that a specific greasy ethnic food made you this happy I’d have stopped ordering Thai two years ago.”

“Thai is your favourite.”

“And Chinese is yours.”

“We’ll just make a schedule,” John laughs.

“It can’t just be the Chinese food,” Sherlock insists.

“What, I can’t be in a good mood?” John asks.

“I’d love for you to always be in a good mood,” Sherlock says, “tell me what made you so happy so that I can be sure it happens every day.”

“I’m just happy,” John says. He shrugs. “We’re in a good place.”

“Our flat _is_ quite nice.”

“Don’t be snarky.”

“Be more specific, then,” Sherlock implores.

“We’re in a good place,” John repeats. He sets down his dishrag and walks into the sitting room. “I’m happy, you’re happy, it’s Christmastime again - ”

“We got lube and condoms,” Sherlock adds.

“Shut up,” John says, then seamlessly continues, “this time last year things were tense and broken but now we’re together and… _happy_.”

Sherlock quirks a brow at him. “How many times can you say happy?”

“Until it stops sounding like a word,” John says, smiling. “Aren’t you happy?”

“I’m absolutely elated,” Sherlock promises.

“You’re in a mood.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what made you happy tonight,” Sherlock says.

John flops into his chair. “Do you really want to know?” he asks.

“I really want to know,” Sherlock promises.

John nibbles the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. “I sold Mary’s ring,” he says, smiling softly.

Sherlock blinks at him. “You sold it.”

“I was looking at it earlier, and I noticed that… when I looked at it, I didn’t feel anything anymore.” A look, something nearly worrisome, flashes over Sherlock’s expression and John amends his statement. “When you first got it back for me, I looked at it and all I could think about was everything that went wrong, especially between you and I. But when I looked at it today, all I saw was a ring. So I sold it.”

Sherlock’s brows settle comfortably again. “And you’re… okay?” he asks.

“I’m happy,” John says again. He gets up from his chair and walks over to kiss Sherlock on the top of his head. “Thank you for making me happy.”

“I return the sentiment wholeheartedly,” Sherlock says.

“Softer terms, Sherlock.”

“Thank you for making me happy, too.”

 

-

  
“You’re sure?”

“Stop asking,” Sherlock hisses.

“I have to keep asking because I have to keep making sure that you’re sure.”

“I’ve told you three times that I’m sure. _Please_ , John.”

John shivers. “You’re desperate.”

“I’m more aroused now than I’ve ever been in my life,” Sherlock whines. “ _Please_.”

John rolls them over, delving back in to kiss Sherlock. Sherlock wraps his arms around John and John reaches down to press his fingers into Sherlock, drawing out a lovely moan.

 

-

 

John traces the creases of Sherlock’s palm with his pinkie finger.

“You hands are small,” Sherlock croons.

“No complaints, I hope,” John says, smiling.

“Even if there were, you more than made up for it later,” Sherlock grins. John breaks down into giggles while Sherlock kisses his way down John’s neck and settles on his chest for the night, beaming and snuggling close.

 

-

 

They kiss at midnight on New Year’s and fall asleep on the couch, their half drunk glasses of scotch on the coffee table.

 

* * *

 

**(Two and a Half Years Ago.)**

John sits at Sholto’s bedside, twisting his wedding ring absently. It feels foreign on his finger, but he figures he ought to get used to it. He’s got himself into it now. He has no idea how, but he’s already got to patch up a marriage that only started today. He should have seen something like this coming; if only Sherlock had just announced the pregnancy _before_ the wedding. John rubs his forehead, exhausted.

“You look worse than I imagine I do,” Sholto whispers.

John drops his hand and smiles at James. “You’re awake earlier than I thought you’d be. Feeling any better?”

“Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?” Sholto asks, ignoring John’s question.

“Ah, yeah,” John answers. “We’re not leaving ‘til morning, and I figured I owed you a hospital visit.”

“You saved my life, Watson, but you don’t need to watch over me in hospital.”

They fall silent and John looks out the window, clenching and unclenching his fist.

“I hope you were able to accept my apology,” James says.

John nods a few times and sighs. “I’m glad you came,” he says, turning his head back to smile softly at Sholto.

“Are you happy?” Sholto asks.

John hesitates before nodding again. “Yeah, I am,” he answers, strained.

James looks at him in disbelief but accepts the answer. “I’m happy for you,” he says. He smiles sadly. “I feel like a right idiot for more than one reason, but I’m happy for you.”

 

* * *

 

**III.**

John catches Sherlock staring at him; that squinty-eyed, inquisitive stare. He does his best to pretend he hasn’t noticed, but eventually gives up.

“You need something?” he asks, checking to see if Sherlock is even consciously aware of his actions. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d got into his head and not realised how eerie he was acting.

“It’s a bit early to ask you to retire with me, isn’t it,” Sherlock states; not quite asking what _should_ have been a question. He nods conclusively and pulls out his phone, leaving John staring at him with bewilderment from across the room.

“A bit,” he agrees, trying to pull Sherlock back into the conversation. He rises and walks to the desk, sitting across from his partner. “Where did that come from?”

“Oh, I’ve been wanting to ask since about a month after you first moved in, but most people don’t ask their platonic flatmates to retire to Sussex Downs with them,” Sherlock explains. He sets his phone down on the desk. “We’ve only been involved romantically for six months, but I figured it might be time enough to ask. I’ve come to determine that I figured incorrectly.”

“I mean, god, Sherlock, I love you, but don’t you think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself?” John asks.

“I’ve always intended to retire early,” Sherlock says, shrugging. “I’ve looked at real estate in Sussex Downs. My interest in crime has been waning between cases. After all, I’ve been doing this all for nearly fifteen years now. Granted, it’s been somewhat interesting lately, but I’ve started to grow tired of working cases. There are more important things.”

John sits for a moment, processing everything. “So… you want to move to the countryside,” he says slowly. “Just… leave.”

“Well, not yet,” Sherlock amends. “I’m not quite finished. I’ve a few years of interest left in me, I should think. Besides, I’ll need to study apiology more thoroughly before devoting all my free time to it.”

“... Beekeeping?”

“I like bees,” Sherlock reminds him.

“You’re deathly allergic to bees!” John maintains.

“And they are fascinating,” Sherlock says, grinning.

“Jesus, I’m going to live with a madman the rest of my life,” John groans.

Sherlock smiles and inches his hand closer to John’s on the desktop. “Is that a yes?” he asks, eyes bright.

John opens his mouth to reply, then shuts it again. He thinks, _I should say no. I haven’t given this more than a moment’s thought._

But his thorough, careful decisions are what landed him with a detached soldier ex-boyfriend. His careful decisions led him to marry a freelance assassin and turned him into a widower. But running on impulse landed him in Sherlock Holmes’ world.

He thinks, _If I don’t deliberate, I’ll say yes in a heartbeat_ , because his instinct told him that Sherlock was brilliant, even when the people around them told him otherwise. His instinct told him that Sherlock was irreproachable, even when the rest of the bloody world ripped his reputation to shreds. He agreed to move in with Sherlock, completely influenced by adrenaline, and theirs is the only relationship John can see himself a part of until the day he dies.

The childlike elation of Sherlock’s expression warms John’s heart and he smiles, knowing his decision was made the moment he met Sherlock.

“Yeah,” he says, taking Sherlock’s hand. “I suppose it is.”

 

 

 


End file.
